


After the Armistice

by BeaArthurPendragon



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - Historical, Bootlegging, Canon-Typical Violence, Disability, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Original Character(s), Nightmares, Organized Crime, PTSD, Prohibition, Self-Doubt, Sickfic, Speakeasies, Survivor Guilt, Veterans, War, Whump, World War I
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-09-19 22:58:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 35,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17010774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeaArthurPendragon/pseuds/BeaArthurPendragon
Summary: New York, December 1918: Three veterans have come home from France forever changed. One is haunted by the family he lost while he was deployed, one struggles with the guilt of surviving the war without having fired a single shot, and the third, his childhood best friend, blinded by mustard gas and adapting to a life that's changed in ways he never could have imagined.After Prohibition is enacted and organized crime threatens to tear Hell's Kitchen apart, they have to fight to save the home they've sacrificed so much for already.Tags and possibly rating will be updated as new characters/relationships emerge.





	1. August-December 1918: Dulce et Decorum Est

**Author's Note:**

> So, I literally dreamed this setup the other night and drafted this chapter today. This is my first time posting a WIP--I have only a rough idea of where it's going, but I love this idea so I know I'm not going to just let it die on the vine. 
> 
> In the meantime, I would love to hear your feedback about what you'd like to see next! I have a few general ideas, but the suggestion box is definitely open! :)
> 
> ALSO! I don't have a regular posting schedule so you might want to subscribe in case life gets busy and I can't update it for a while. Thank you! xoxo
> 
> Happy reading!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I have a message for Sister Margaret?” he’d said softly, removing his cap.
> 
> “I am she,” Maggie said, her heart turning to ice. It had been nearly eight months since Matthew’s last letter, but she knew immediately this had to do with him.
> 
> “My name is Francis Castle, ma’am,” he said. “I served with Matthew Murdock in France. He said he grew up here and still had friends here?”
> 
> Maggie gasped and covered her mouth with her hands and nodded, trying and failing to keep her eyes from welling tears.
> 
> “He’s very sick, ma’am,” Francis said. “He’s asking for you.”
> 
> “He’s alive? He’s here?”
> 
> “Yes, ma’am, but I don’t know for how much longer,” he said. “Will you come?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [pogopop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pogopop/pseuds/pogopop) for some super helpful after-posting feedback!
> 
> Chapter title is from Wilfred Owen's 1917 poem [Dulce et Decorum Est](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decorum-est), which depicts the effects of mustard gas.

She had only met him a few times, but she recognized him immediately when he stepped into St. Agnes’ entry hall. He would never be thin, but he had lost weight, and there was new iron in his spine and new shadows beneath his eyes. The war had not stolen as much from him as it had from Matthew, but it had changed him all the same.

“You should not be here, Mr. Nelson,” Maggie said sternly, though she was secretly glad. She had baited this hook and young Franklin had proven himself worthy by taking it. “Father Lantom told me he would only tell you where Matthew was as long as you promised not to come.”

“I know,” Franklin said quietly, but he spoke with a hardness that Maggie had never heard in him before. “I know. But this has gone on too long. I will not leave until I see him.”

From the set of his jaw, Maggie did not doubt him.

“I will let him know you are here, Mr. Nelson, but I must warn you he is much changed. He may not wish to be seen.”

“I’m aware of his injury, Sister. Is he badly disfigured?”

“No.” She paused and touched his arm. “But he is very angry, Mr. Nelson, and very low. He grieves for his future.”

“I just want to bring him home,” Franklin said. “Please.”

He glanced around the front hall of the orphanage and Maggie wondered what it must have looked like to wealthy man like him. It was a simple place, but clean and well-repaired, drafty but warm enough. Maggie always wished they could do more for the children, of course, but she was proud that the food was wholesome and plentiful, all their children learned basic reading and arithmetic, and none were bonded out to work before they were 12.

That was how they had met, Matthew and Franklin. Matthew had been sent to work cleaning the floors at the Nelson family’s meat-packing plant, but when word of his clever mind reached Edward Nelson’s ears, he’d personally purchased Matthew a new suit of clothes and set him to work as an office boy. Edward had set Franklin to the same job after school—it was the only way to learn the family business, he said—and the boys became fast friends.

To his credit, neither Edward or his wife, Anna, discouraged this. They were great admirers of John Dewey and perhaps they saw in Matthew an opportunity to model social reform to their wealthy peers. Within a year, Matthew was sitting alongside Franklin in school at the Nelsons’ expense, and the boys were promoted together through the company as they grew, drafting correspondence and reconciling ledgers and overseeing deliveries. Matthew was paid a small wage above what Edward paid the orphanage for his work, and this Matthew was allowed to keep in a coffee tin squirreled away in Sister Margaret’s office for his 16th birthday, when he would have to leave and make his own way in the world.

But fate postponed that day in the form of Anna Nelson’s golden heart. Franklin had always been clever, but Matthew was by far the brightest boy at school, and it would be a shame for his education to stop there. It took nothing to persuade Edward to invite Matthew to live with them so could follow Franklin to Columbia College.

Matthew had been harder to convince. He had imposed too much already on the Nelsons’ charity, he argued. The education he’d already received and his work at Nelson Fine Meats were more than enough. He didn’t need anyone else’s help.

It was finally Maggie who convinced him to accept. “Do not let your pride keep you from making the most of the gifts God has given you, Matthew,” she’d said sternly. “They are extending their hand to you out of love, not pity. Take it, my boy. Take it and never look back.”

And he had. He kept his promise not to return, but he still wrote to Maggie sometimes from the Nelson’s Amsterdam Avenue home, four miles and a world away. He was studying Latin and Greek, reading Shakespeare and figuring calculus, and at night he would put on a warm coat to sit in the campus observatory to chart the transit of the stars across the sky. Other nights he and Franklin would do as young men did, making merry at parties, playing cards with friends, flirting with girls and even courting a few. He and Franklin joined a debate society, the Philolexians, who had one night dubbed them Foggy and the Devil for reasons that in the light of morning seemed utterly obscure, but which nonetheless had stuck.

He’d continued to write after the war began, and he and Franklin were drafted within weeks of each other. Franklin had been posted nearly a hundred miles from the front at a supply post in Le Havre, to Anna’s great relief and his great shame, but by June of 1917, Matthew was writing home from a trench near the Argonne. He wrote often because he could never be sure which letters made it home and which did not, and even if he repeated himself, Maggie welcomed each one, if only because they meant he was still alive. His letters from that time were both short and heartbreaking, scrawled on filthy paper, sometimes in light so dim they could barely be read.

It was his last that haunted her most, though. _I regret that I did not come to say goodbye before I sailed_ , he’d written. _The Germans have us pinned down in a bad way and we awaiting reinforcements, but I do not know if they will come in time. I pray Death mistakes me for the Devil and passes me by, but should He not, I hope you will know that I did not leave this world entirely ignorant of a mother’s love. God bless you, M._

One month passed, then two, then three, and she heard no more from him. She wrote to the Nelsons, who had not heard from him in even longer. She scanned the newspaper daily for his name among the dead, and her heart stopped when she found a _Michael Murdoch, 21, Manhattan_ listed. Michael was Matthew’s middle name, the age was right, and God knew mistakes were easy to make.

On the other hand, neither Maggie nor the Nelsons had been notified. But that hope was a hard flame to keep lit as the months continued to unwind without word. Eventually, after a long night of sorrowful prayer, she made the decision to blow out that light, and began to include Matthew’s name among those of the other children who had died over the years in her care.

But she couldn’t throw away his letters, instead keeping them in the drawer with the coffee tin full of money Matthew had insisted on leaving behind. “Safer than a bank,” he’d said. “Keep it for a rainy day.”

That day had come on a hot August day four months ago, in the form of a tall, wary young man with a broken nose and haunted eyes.

“I have a message for Sister Margaret?” he’d said softly, removing his cap.

“I am she,” Maggie said, her heart turning to ice. It had been nearly eight months since Matthew’s last letter, but she knew immediately this had to do with him.

“My name is Francis Castle, ma’am,” he said. “I served with Matthew Murdock in France. He said he grew up here and still had friends here?”

Maggie gasped and covered her mouth with her hands and nodded, trying and failing to keep her eyes from welling tears.

“He’s very sick, ma’am,” Francis said. “He’s asking for you.”

“He’s alive? He’s _here_?”

“Yes, ma’am, but I don’t know for how much longer,” he said. “Will you come?”

She’d crossed herself and reached for her cloak in the same motion, and within minutes they were on their way to the Soldiers’ Infirmary on West 32nd Street. As he limped alongside her, Francis told her that he had met Matthew at a field hospital in Epernay in late February, where Francis had been brought after having received severe shrapnel wounds to his left leg at Bellau Wood. Matthew had been posted further south, and was the only survivor in his unit of a mustard gas attack. They joined a handful of other wounded in a caravan that bore them first to Paris by truck, then to Brest by train, where they boarded a hospital ship home.

“He sat by my side the entire time, ma’am,” Francis said, his voice somehow even softer. “There were things I didn’t like to bother the nurses with, and he helped me as best he could.”

“Matthew was always very kind,” Maggie said.

“I think it was mostly because he was afraid to be alone, ma’am,” Francis said. “Being blind in the middle of a war and all.”

“He was blinded?”

“Yes, ma’am. In both eyes.”

Maggie’s mind began to reel. “When did you get back?”

“In early April, ma’am.” _Four months ago. Dear God._ “Neither one of us really had a home to go back to, so we took rooms near the West Side docks together. I found work at a saloon near the warehouse district, and Matthew found employment at a workshop for the blind that makes brooms.”

“Matthew was making brooms?”

“Yes, ma’am. There’s a charity,” he said. “It doesn’t pay much but it’s more than what you get from begging, and his disability allowance isn’t enough to live on.”

Maggie nodded and wiped her eyes, and picked up the pace of her steps. “Quickly, please,” she said. “As quickly as you can manage.”

Broom-making was dusty work, though, Francis explained, and the chaff of the straw quickly settled into Matthew’s lungs, already weakened from the gas. Gradually his cough grew worse and worse, and he grew pale and weak. His breathing became labored at the slightest effort, and eventually four days ago a fever set in that would not break. Frank had carried him to the hospital, but he did not improve. He became delirious and forgot where he was, sometimes forgot he was blind and cried out in terror that he could not see. He became too weak to cough, and the nurses had to pound on his back to help him bring up the infection. There was blood, too, more by the day. That morning Matthew spoke coherently for the first time in two days, just long enough to ask for a priest, and for Sister Maggie.

Father Lantom was just leaving the hospital as Francis and Maggie approached.

“Sister Margaret,” he said, approaching her. “I’m glad you came.”

“How is he?”

Father Lantom gave a pained smile. “Very weak. I think he’ll be glad to hear a familiar voice.” He reached forward and touched her arm. “Have courage, Margaret. If it is his time, he is ready.”

“He may be, but I’m not,” Maggie said sharply.

“He may surprise us yet,” the priest said. “Now go. Quickly.”

They climbed the stairs as quickly as Francis’ shattered leg could bear, then hurried inside and down the hall to the men’s ward.

Matthew’s bed was at the end, behind a white fabric screen. Maggie was shocked at the sight of him—he was pale as cotton and skeletally thin; even his unshaven beard could not could hide the sharp hollows of his cheeks. His face was splotched with still-healing blisters from the mustard gas and he was wheezing heavily, his lungs gurgling with each breath. _He is drowning_ , she thought, as she dropped into the chair by his side.

“Matthew,” she said softly, taking his hand, and she can feel the heat of his fever radiating from his skin before she even touches him. “Matthew. It’s Sister Margaret. Can you hear me?”

His eyes fluttered open and she saw that the beautiful hazel eyes he’d gotten from his father were now thickly filmed in white, leaving just the faintest blue impression of an iris behind each milky scar. He turned his head slightly toward her. “Maggie,” he said, so softly and hoarsely she can barely hear him. “You came.”

“I would not miss the opportunity to scold you for not telling me you had made it home alive,” Maggie said. "From your last letter I was sure you had died."

A faint flicker of a smile trembled in the corners of his mouth before a coughing fit seized him. Francis quickly moved to his side and helped him sit up, rubbing his back and holding a rag to his mouth to catch the bloody sputum.

“There you go, Red,” he said gently, wiping his mouth before helping him lie back down. “You’re all right now.”

“Red?” Maggie asked.

“You should've seen his eyes before they healed,” Francis said. “Looked like the devil, he did.”

Maggie smiled at this and stroked Matthew’s wrist with her thumb. “Matthew, you foolish boy, why did you not send for me sooner?” _Before it was too late_ , she doesn’t want to add, angrily.

“I did not want anyone to see me like this,” he said simply, too tired to lie.

“Are you in much pain?”

He gave a tiny shrug. “Enough to tell me I’m still alive.”

“And alive you’ll stay, young man,” Maggie said, squeezing his hand. His fingers twitched a little beneath her grasp, but he didn’t have the strength for more.

“Yes, Sister,” he said, coughing a little but refusing Francis’ help. “Sister?”

“What, Matthew?”

“Will you stay for a while?”

Maggie’s throat ached with sorrow. “Of course, Matthew. I’ll be right here.”

She stayed until his eyes drifted shut and the rattling in his chest slowed. His breathing was still shallow and wet, but it was stubbornly steady. _Like his father_ , she thought. Eventually Francis had to go to work, but Maggie stayed and sat with him through the night, dozing here and there in her chair when she could, and maybe it was just exhaustion or hope, but she could swear by morning his breathing had gotten a little stronger.

“Who’s there?” he mumbled as he woke, and even his voice was a little stronger now that he’s slept. He was a bit more pink, too. Perhaps Death had mistaken him for the Devil twice, she thought.

“It’s me, Matthew. Sister Maggie.”

“You stayed.”

“As I promised I would,” she said. “How do you feel?”

“Like I might actually live till supper.”

She kissed his hand and then stood and kissed his forehead. It was cooler, too. “Good,” she said. “It’s time to bring you home.”

It was testament to the severity of his illness that he did not protest when Maggie made the arrangements to move him to the orphanage’s infirmary. Hospitals were filthy, she declared, and now that she was certain he would survive the journey, he would be better off under Sister Claire’s care than here. She paid the bill with some of the money from Matthew’s coffee can, ordered an ambulance, and he was back at St. Agnes before noon.

In any case, he slept through the entire thing, not waking until late in the evening with, for the first time in weeks, an appetite. Maggie had brought him a cup of broth to drink, and when he could prove he could keep that down, she offered him a bit of soft buttered bread.

The worst was past. Francis arrived the next day with Matthew’s things, and Maggie wanted to weep at the sight of how few they were: His uniform, a few changes of clothes, a tattered bundle of letters, a Bible, the simple wooden walking stick he used to feel out the ground ahead of him.

“Make him use this,” Francis said, pressing the cane into Maggie’s hands. “He hates it, but he needs it.”

"You're a good man, Mr. Castle," Maggie said.

"No, I'm not, ma'am," he said simply. "But he is. Take care of him, yeah?"

After a week in the infirmary, Matthew was still weak, but well enough to roam the orphanage—though he stayed clear of the children’s areas for the most part. He had taken to climbing up and down the service stairs between the kitchen and the attic to rebuild his strength, and that gave Maggie an idea.

There was an old unused maid’s room up there—small, but there was room for a bed, a bureau, and a washstand, and it had a surprisingly large window that overlooked the church next door. The view wouldn’t matter much to Matthew, she knew, but the fresh air would be a blessing in the August heat. She spent Saturday cleaning it up, dusting and scrubbing, and she tasked the older boys with hauling out some spare furniture from the basement and bringing it upstairs.

That night, Maggie had led him upstairs to the room. “This is your room now,” she’d said, walking him forward so he could feel the bed. “For as long as you need one.”

Matthew had gone very still at that—something Maggie had noticed he now did anytime he entered a new room, as if he was trying to sound out the space with his ears. Then he’d shaken his head.

“I won’t become your ward again, Sister,” he said. “I will see if Francis still has room for me.”

“Not as our ward, Matthew,” Maggie said. “You’ll earn your keep.”

“Oh? Shall I wash dishes and fold laundry alongside the novices? Am I now harmless enough for that?”

She cuffed his cheek lightly. “You have an education, and our older children are in need of one,” she said. “We can teach them to spell and do basic figures, but you—you can teach them so much more.”

Matthew laughed bitterly. “Why? So the girls can console themselves with tales from Herodotus as they stitch shirtwaists in a Greenwich Village sweatshop and the boys can calculate the transit of Mars as they haul bundles on and off ships at the docks?”

“You are not the only child to grow up here with promise for a brighter future, Matthew.”

“Not so bright now, is it?”

“Matthew, if you want me to feel sorry for you, it won’t work,” Maggie said.  

“You’re a sentimental fool, Sister,” he said.

“I don’t have a sentimental bone in my body, Matthew,” she said. “You’re welcome to go back to the broom shop anytime you like.”

“Don’t mock me,” he said. “It was honest work.”

“I wasn’t mocking you. You were mocking yourself and the gifts God gave you,” she said. “If you cannot bring yourself to call upon the Nelsons and resume your studies, then at least share the wealth of your mind with some children who could benefit from it.”

“How shall I teach if I cannot read?”

“You’re a smart young man,” Maggie said crisply. “I’ve no doubt you’ll manage.”

Matthew gave a concessionary nod. “I will consider the offer, Sister.”

He had, as Maggie predicted, accepted the job. The sister who taught the primary classes, Sister Mary Alice, served as his eyes and scribe, but the classes were entirely his. Books were few, so he introduced them to literature by having them read aloud in turn, pausing to discuss a passage or a concept as they went. He checked the children’s math by asking each one to explain how they solved their equations. Scientific equipment was nonexistent, but there was a kitchen and a garden and a sky, and that was all the laboratory he needed to teach them chemistry, botany, astronomy, and even mammalian reproduction when the cat turned up pregnant. (Some of the nuns had been shocked by this, but Matthew noted that this was the best way to prevent their girls from coming home the same way.)  

He gradually began to regain some weight. His color was improved, his voice grew strong as his lungs healed, and he finally accepted the fact that the cane he so hated did, in fact, help him get around more easily. But though he did his best to be cheerful around the children, he otherwise kept mostly to himself. Sister Claire checked on him every day to listen to his chest, but she didn't need to be the one to tell Maggie that his listlessness had nothing to do with pneumonia. The dark glasses he wore to shield his eyes could not hide the dark circles beneath them; she knew precious little of war, but she knew the nightmares would likely be with him always. Sudden noises would send him pale and quaking, while an unexpected touch could trigger a violent response. And she knew he spent many long hours in prayer at the church next door, mostly as an excuse not to talk to anyone.  

He was restless, she knew, frustrated that he could not simply take a walk around the block by himself whenever he wished—even with his walking stick, the buckled, garbage-strewn streets of Hell’s Kitchen were too treacherous without a guide. And he was bored as well, dependent as he was on someone else to read to him and unwilling as he was to ask. Father Lantom was well-read, particularly in philosophy, and sometimes Matthew could muster the energy to engage with him over the categorical imperatives of Immanuel Kant or the moral sentiments of Adam Smith. But more often than not, once he grew tired of pretending to pray, he would simply slip into the choir room to sit at the practice piano and pick out hymns by ear.

In November the Armistice came and the war was over, but Matthew scarcely noticed—or cared.

Francis stopped by most Saturday afternoons, taking Matthew out for a walk if the weather was tolerable or sitting up in Matthew’s room to talk if it was not. They were not close the way Matthew and Franklin had been close, but there was no question that their harrowing journey together had forged a deep bond between them that seemed to bring comfort to them both. 

No, Matthew was not happy in his new life, she knew, but he was healthy, and he was managing, and perhaps that was all anyone could expect at this point. After all, he’d been blind for less than ten months, with nothing but the hell of No Man’s Land to look at for seven months before that. She could hardly blame him for having a hard time remembering that there was beauty in the world, too.

Matthew had refused to allow Maggie to write to the Nelsons of his ordeal, but had finally, a week ago, consented to let her at least send word that he was alive and well and did not wish to be contacted, under the condition that she not reveal his location to them. She agreed to the terms. And if the letter happened to be delivered by Father Lantom, who had made no such promise and who was free to tell the Nelsons where he was, and if his friend chose to violate Matthew's wish to isolate himself, was the betrayal actually hers? Matthew was stubborn, but so was she. He needed more than what St. Agnes could provide. He needed his best friend.

“Sister Maggie?” Franklin ventured softly, interrupting her thoughts. “Please. I must see him for myself.”

“Very well,” she said. “Wait here.”


	2. December 1918: A Negotiated Truce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had not gone home for the simple reason that there was no place in the Nelson’s house for a half-dead creature such as he. Better to let them mourn the loss of the man he was without being mocked by the thing he had become. 
> 
> He should have known it was foolish to think that home would not come looking for him anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Some pretty intense depictions of war (more intense than violent though). Not sure if it's enough to bump the rating up to Mature, but let me know if you think I should. 
> 
> Also some period-appropriate ableism. 
> 
> Again, adventures in WIP-ing, so this hasn't had a super-close edit. (I'm treating this as an exercise in imperfectionism.) Hope it's clean enough to enjoy as-is, though!

At night, long after everyone else had fallen asleep, Matthew would roam the orphanage in stocking feet without his cane. Blindness, he had discovered, was not the only change the mustard gas had wrought upon his body.

He could not explain how he had come to know how to detect the location of objects he had not yet touched, nor their size and bulk, but he could. It had taken some practice but his perambulations around the orphanages he had taught himself to distinguish furniture and windows, even curtains and carpets. And yet he could detect no light at all—the doctors had confirmed this when he arrived back in America, and he tested it daily by staring into the little electric lamp in the school room. It held warmth and shape and gave off an eerie buzz, but that was all. Whatever this was, it was not sight.

Stranger still was the sharpness of his hearing. He had heard that blindness enhanced a sufferer’s hearing, and that made sense, but he did not think it explained why he could hear a heartbeat through a door—or distinguish one person from another that way. He could hear Mass from his bedroom window, and the street as well. Sometimes when he wanted to remember what normal life was, he would simply sit and listen to the greengrocer across the street go about his day. He was a kind man, Matthew noticed, always finding a way to give the hungrier people a little more. And the produce he sold was fresh and wholesome—Matthew could smell the sweetness of the tomatoes and the sharp acid of the onions from his perch. He was fairly certain that was not a common side effect of blindness, either, nor the new sensitivity of his tongue that allowed him to taste a universe of flavors in a plain slice of bread.

It had made the early days of his injury all the more hellish, having to hear the private internal agonies of all the wounded men he was crowded with—lungs filling with fluid, shattered bones creaking with each sway of the truck, hearts skipping with infection, bowels gurgling with blood. And the smells—the burns and the shit and the gangrene—he could not even bear to remember.

Francis had somehow recognized how disoriented he was right away, however, and called him over. “Help me move my leg, yeah? My ass is going numb.”

He’d clung to Francis for the entire journey, and God bless him, Francis had let him, inventing ways for him to be useful so he would not feel so much like a frightened child clinging to his older brother on the first day of school. It had taken two weeks for them to reach Brest, and another three to cross the sea, and by the time they arrived, Matthew had managed to figure out how to shut out the sensations he did not need in order to do whatever task he had at hand. He was certain that having someone to focus so closely on the whole time was what kept him from going mad.

But he never spoke of this to Francis—or to anyone. Unexplainable things had a nasty habit of being turned into miracles in churches, and seven months on the Western Front provided proof enough that miracles did not exist. The only reason he still believed in God at all was to hate Him.

Because though he had quickly learned how to filter out the noise and the stench of the world around him, he was powerless against the horrors that replayed themselves over and over again in his mind. “You know how there are some things you see every time you close your eyes?” he’d once tried to explain to Francis. “The thing is, I can never open mine.”

He never spoke of them directly, because Francis did not need him to. He knew as well as Matthew the relentless terror and boredom of the trenches, the filth and the rain and the mud, the sickness and the bitter cold the summer mosquitoes, the rotten food and the stench of smoke and the sobbing screams of wounded men trapped in No Man’s Land for hours as they died uncomforted and alone. He knew how letters from home became both precious and unbearable; that sometimes it was easier to simply hold them, unread, than break their hearts all over again with longing for their loved ones.

Francis also understood how their sanity crumbled bit by bit as the months wore on, how that gave way to other horrors—to rapes and murders and more than a few collections of German ears. In a moment of madness Matthew had himself harvested one, though in the morning he was so disgusted by what he’d done that he’d thrown it back over the trench. He could still feel the popping and tearing of it beneath his knife every time he cut his meat.

When, at long last, the gas came in a queer, low, orange mist, and they realized that the crate with their masks had been destroyed by a lucky mortar the day before, his commanding officer barely had time to gather the men into a quick huddle to say the Lord’s Prayer before it burned them all alive.

Even now he did not know how he survived. He was found by a burial detail a day later at the bottom of the pile of men; perhaps they protected him from the worst of it. “You’re a lucky man,” his rescuer said as they carried him to the ambulances, and he did not have the strength to tell him he was wrong.

It was like being half alive and half in hell, and never quite knowing which side he was on at any given moment. The children were a nice distraction, though he could only bear them for so long, as was daily Mass, if only because it gave him an excuse to spite the God who left him thus.  

He had not gone home for the simple reason that there was no place in the Nelson’s house for a half-dead creature such as he. Better to let them mourn the loss of the man he was without being mocked by the thing he had become.

He should have known it was foolish to think that home would not come looking for him anyway.

He was in the classroom down the corridor from the entryway, listening to Sister Mary Alice read the oldest children’s essays on the Federalist Papers so he could mark them, when he realized the gig was up. Franklin’s voice, perhaps because it was so dear to him, carried like a bell on a cold night right over the nun’s and into his ear.

_No._

It had been a year and a half since they’d last spoken, and almost a year since he’d last read his words. Francis had offered to read the letters Matthew had brought back from France anytime he wanted, but Matthew had never asked. They were from his old life, his dead life. He supposed he would burn them eventually.

But he’d never been able to bring himself to do it, and hearing Franklin’s voice again, he understood why: Franklin was a part of him that he could never fully amputate, no matter how badly rotted their bond had become.

He cleared his throat roughly and pretended to adjust his glasses on the bridge of his nose as an excuse to catch an escaping tear before Sister Mary Alice saw it. He was not entirely successful.

“Are you all right, Mr. Murdock? Is it another spell?” she asked gently. Bless her, she never made him feel embarrassed about it—or at least not more than he already was.

“No, Sister, I’m—” but no, he wasn’t. And he didn’t want Sister Mary Alice present for this. “Actually, perhaps you could give me a few minutes after all.”

“Of course. I’ll be in the solarium. Call me when you’re ready.”

Well, that sealed his fate. To get to the solarium, she would need to cross through the entry hall, which would mean that Sister Maggie would know he was now alone in the classroom. Cornered, he realized, as it stood at the end of the corridor. Almost as if Sister Maggie had planned it. Which, he was quickly piecing together, she had.

Matthew leaned against the side of the desk and focused on Franklin’s voice. There was still love in it somehow—Matthew had no capacity for it anymore—but his joy was gone, and that made him sad. He knew Franklin had been disappointed and ashamed to spend most of the war so uselessly far from the front, but that did not mean he had been wholly insulated from the horrors of it. Matthew knew he would have seen for himself the steady river of increasingly young British troops crossing the Channel to join the fight, and the even steadier river of wounded troops returning home, and that could not have been an easy sight for Franklin’s tender heart to bear.

Two sets of footsteps were approaching. He stood up straight and closed his hands into fists, trying to will their strength into his heart. The strength to do what, he wasn’t sure. Just bear it, he supposed, whatever _it_ turned out to be.

“Matthew,” Maggie said softly, knocking and opening the door. “You have a visitor.”

Then Franklin stepped out from behind her, his heart beating a wild tattoo of anxiety and relief. “Speak of the Devil,” he said, a faint quaver in his voice that sent Matthew’s heart into his stomach.

“Hello, Foggy,” Matthew replied, forcing his own voice to remain as steady as he could. Suddenly all the hell of the past seventeen months seemed to have accreted into a physical thing in his chest that threatened to steal all the breath from his lungs atom by atom.

Franklin began to approach him cautiously, as though Matthew were a wounded animal that might bite him instead of the friend he’d known for years.

Well, he wasn’t entirely wrong.

The creak of the floor told him Franklin was close enough to touch, and he extended his hand just as cautiously. He could not bear the idea of Franklin embracing him and hoped against hope that a handshake would be enough. Franklin took his hand, his breath hitching the moment they touched. Matthew clasped his other hand around Franklin’s and tried to smile, but he could not. He had nothing left to give his friend, and he was ashamed of it.

Franklin mirrored the gesture and Matthew could tell by the expectant lean of his chest that he wanted more.

“May I embrace you, old friend, or has your recent illness made it too painful?” he asked, and Matthew could have wept with gratitude at the question. Franklin was always so good at knowing what people wanted.

“My ribs are still sore,” Matthew allowed, because at least that was the truth. He had fractured three with his coughing, and the winter chill missed no opportunity to remind him of that fact.

“Very well,” Franklin said, not letting go of his hands. “I shall call in my counter later.”

Matthew managed a tiny smile at that.

“I have no need for my office for a while,” Sister Maggie said gently. “It’s not luxurious but the chairs are, at least, upholstered.”

Matthew didn’t want to leave, didn’t want Franklin to see him walk with his stick, but there were no comforts in this classroom, and Franklin deserved better.

To his credit—Matthew never gave Franklin enough credit—he did not stare. He simply offered Matthew his arm and then kept his eyes straight ahead when Matthew refused. “Many blinded British soldiers went home through Le Havre,” he said simply. “One became accustomed to it.”

 _Easy for you to say_ , Matthew wanted to say. He knew he had to stop dismissing everyone else who had not endured the same things he had, but he could not help but be a little selfish in his suffering.

The short, wordless walk down the corridor to Maggie’s office was torture. Matthew winced with every tap of his cane; the sound seemed to echo especially loudly today, and for once there was no roar of children to cover it up. Part of him wished he had accepted Franklin’s offer of a hand on his arm, simply because he craved more contact with his friend, but it seemed pointless somehow, so he did not.

They did not speak again until they were safely seated in Maggie’s office with a fresh pot of tea to share.

“I confess I do not know where to start,” Franklin said.

“ _You_ came to see _me_ ,” Matthew said, more bitterly than he intended.

“Your anger is not lost on me, Matthew,” Franklin said. “I know you did not want me to come. I understand why.”

“You understand nothing.”

“I understand you better than you think. You believe you have already overextended my family’s charity and that you have no right to ask for more.”

Matthew didn’t answer. Franklin was, as usual, entirely and infuriatingly correct.

“Matthew, we _miss_ you, you idiot. After all this time, do you really think my parents would ever turn you away?”

“Why? So they can add another variable to their grand social experiment of lifting up the unfortunate? Now that their pet orphan has gone and got himself blinded in the war, it must open up a whole new range of possibilities for them to show off their virtue.”

“How dare you,” Foggy spat, standing abruptly. “They love you like a _son_ , Matthew. They have never once condescended to you. My mother still has your Christmas presents wrapped and waiting for you. And my father—well, you know Edward. He’s never spoken a complete sentence in his life, but I found him in your old room on your birthday, just standing there. How dare you speak of them that way.”

“I will not become an object of pity again, Foggy,” Matthew said firmly. “I have drunk my fill of stares from your parents’ friends already.”

“Then we shall live apart from them,” Franklin said. “We shall take rooms elsewhere. We shall study law like we always planned and open our own firm.”

“As progressive as he may think he is, your father will not like the idea of his heir apparent abdicating his position to go into business with a cripple.”

“My father has more than one son and, for that matter, an exceptionally capable daughter,” Franklin said. “The world has changed, or hadn’t you noticed?”

“It’s been a while since I’ve looked out a window,” Matthew said, and he removed his glasses to make his point.  

It was a crude, angry attempt to shock his friend, and from the sound of the catch in his breath, it worked. “I’m sorry for everything that happened to you, Matthew,” he said, dropping heavily back into his chair. “You did not deserve any of this.”

“None of us did, Foggy,” Matthew said, repenting a little of his cruelty. However mixed his feelings had always been about Anna and Edward Nelson, Franklin had only ever loved him, and Matthew could still at least remember what it felt like to love him back.

“No.”

“It must have been difficult to see so many wounded day in and day out,” Matthew said, replacing his glasses.

“I still see them,” Franklin admitted. “Injuries you would not believe a man could possibly survive.”

“I can believe it,” Matthew said. “One afternoon a man from my unit stepped on a land mine a dozen feet from my trench. It took both of his legs and one of his arms, and it was hours before the Germans let up enough for me and another man to climb out and retrieve his body.” He stopped to take a careful sip of tea, and tried to will his hand steady enough that he would not rattle the saucer when he replaced the cup. He was being cruel again already, trying to one-up Franklin’s pain, but he didn’t care. If Franklin wanted him back, well, let him see what damaged goods he was getting.

“But he was still alive. The heat of the explosion had cauterized his wounds so thoroughly that he did not bleed to death. By then it was too dark to carry him to the ambulances, so we lay him on a stretcher in the trench and covered him with a blanket. We gave him some whiskey and some chocolate too, because we were not certain he would survive the night and it was the best last meal we could manage with our rations, and then we took it in turns to sit up with him so that he would not die alone. He moaned a little, but he never cried out, and I have never seen anything braver. God only knows how, but by morning he was still alive, but feverish. We carried him to the ambulance post and they took him to the hospital. I never did learn what happened to him.”

“Did you know his name?”

Matthew smiled joylessly. “Of course I did. Kevin Page, from Vermont. We’d been friends since basic training. He’d lied about his age when he enlisted—he was only 16.”

“I could inquire with the War Office—”

“No, thank you,” Matthew said. “I’ve decided that I prefer to think of him back on his farm with his father and sister, tending his cows and courting a pretty girl as he was meant to do. There’s no answer from the War Office that will tell me that.”

“No.” Franklin leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, turning a teaspoon over and over in his hands. “I am ashamed that I was not allowed to give more, Matthew. Is that mad?”

“Like Kevin did? Like me?”

“Not exactly,” he said, shaking his head. “What I mean to say is—I am grateful for my good health. I just find myself wishing I could have borne more of the suffering so that others might have borne less.”

“You have a generous heart,” Matthew said. “But don’t feel obliged to bear any more on my account.”

“You deliberately misunderstand my motives, Matthew. It doesn’t suit you.”

Matthew nodded and spread his fingers in a concessionary gesture. “I am not prepared to come home with you today,” he said slowly, trying quickly to decide as he spoke whether he was ready to say the second half of his sentence. “But—” _So be it._ “But I would not mind it if you visited again.”

He heard Franklin let out a long breath that he suspected he’d been holding for a very long time. “I would like that very much.”

Franklin offered Matthew his arm again as they walk to the door together, and this time he accepted. In lieu of a parting hug—Matthew’s ribs really did hurt that day—he settled for a strong handshake followed by a firm shoulder squeeze.

“Promise me this is not the last time we will see each other, brother,” Franklin said.

“It will not be,” Matthew said, suddenly eager for him to return. “You might call again on Wednesday afternoon, if you are free.”

“Yes,” Franklin said. “Wednesday it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, a plot approacheth! I think we're pretty well established and ready to get started. Might be a few days before I can post again--thanks for your patience and your kudos and your comments!


	3. Christmas Eve 1918: A Forgotten Duet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t go,” she had whispered, smoothing the lapels of his new uniform. It was, he later realized, quite possibly the last time it had ever been clean.  
> “I must.”  
> “We could run away together. Go out west where they will never find us.”  
> “I cannot do that. I should be ashamed to shirk my duty.”  
> “You have no duty to die, Matthew.”  
> “I shall not die,” he’d said, kissing her back, the foolish promise making him feel brave. “I shall live forever.”  
> “And I shall hold you to that,” she’d said, nipping his lip. “If you die I should be very cross indeed.”  
> “I will not let that happen,” he’d vowed, and oh, what a stupid romantic hero he’d felt like when he said it. “I will come home to you. I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I lied. One more reunion to go. Then plot. I promise. *types furiously*

The snow was not too thick yet, but Matthew did not yet fully trust his new perceptions—or his stick—to see him safely from the buggy stair to the Nelson’s front door, so he gratefully accepted Franklin’s arm as he climbed down to the slick brick sidewalk.

“Ready?” Franklin asked softly, tapping the side of the cab to let the driver know they were clear.

Matthew gave a pained smile. Franklin had visited him six times over the past three weeks, but it had not been until the last, two days ago, that he finally persuaded him to come to dinner Christmas Eve.

Every time Franklin called, he’d brought Matthew something from home—his fine woollen coat, a few good shirts, his smallest suit, his Italian leather brogues, a warm merino sweater that Candace had knitted for him but had not had a chance to send him before he disappeared. He brought Matthew’s shaving set and his slippers and even a feather duvet for his bed, since the attic was drafty. And he brought Matthew some of his favorite books— _Moby-Dick_ , _Leaves of Grass_ , the _Leatherstocking_ tales, and Shakespeare’s history plays—reckoning that the children could practice their letters and expand their minds by reading them to him.

“After half an hour of Moby-Dick, I fear the children will prefer their minds remained closed,” Matthew had noted wryly. It was the closest he could come to humor anymore.  

“Then at least you shall have prepared them for lucrative careers in the whaling industry.”

He had not wanted any of it at first—everything had smelled of home, of lavender laundry powder and cedar hangers and Edward’s pipe tobacco and Mousie the cat, and beneath it all, a hint of what he eventually recognized as his old cologne. He did not think he could bear the memories.

Yet here he was, back on Amsterdam Avenue in his smallest suit, his fine woollen coat, his Italian brogues, and the nicest of the shirts Foggy had brought him. Sister Elizabeth had needed to let out the cuffs to account for the four inches he’d grown since the suit last fit, but at least he was no longer drowning in castoffs.

He had to admit that it felt good to wear something familiar, to remember for a moment what he used to look like—and to imagine for a moment that that some part of that man might still be alive somewhere inside him. Though perhaps that was too much to ask of a few yards of navy worsted.

At any rate, he felt presentable enough to sit down at a table of silver and fine china, and he supposed that was transformation enough.

“Matthew?” Franklin asked. “Shall we go in?”

He took a deep breath. “I don’t suppose waiting will make it any easier,” he said.

Franklin took Matthew’s hand and tucked it under his elbow. “There is no one on the other side of that door who does not love you, Matthew.”

“I know,” Matthew said. He didn’t know how to explain that it didn’t matter—if anything, that made it all the harder. He did not want to hear their gasps or their tears at the sight of him, or endure the awkward fussing and embraces, or bear their eyes on him at table as he felt for his food with his fork. He could not stand the idea of sitting in their drawing room speaking of ordinary things when he knew the only thing they wanted to know was why he would not come home. He had not even gone inside and already he wanted to leave.

And yet—

And yet.

And yet, he found himself gripping Franklin’s arm firmly and extending his walking stick to search out the familiar stairs he knew were ahead of him. And he found himself stepping forward, and then up, and then up again, until Foggy pushed the door open and guided him inside.

As it happened, the first to greet them was Mrs. Flanagan, the Nelson’s housekeeper. She didn’t wait by the door as a rule—there was a dinner to tend, after all—but from the sudden sharp intake of breath and the swift rustle and heave to his right, where he knew there was a bench next to the coat tree, Matthew knew she had made an exception.

“I am very glad to see you safe home, Mr. Murdock,” she murmured as she took his coat. She placed a tentative hand on his arm—the closest she had ever dared come to an embrace. “You have been in my prayers since you left.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Flan,” Matthew said, his heart tumbling a little as the old nickname came to him automatically. For all that the Nelsons had adopted him, he had always felt most at home with her. Perhaps it was because she had come from the same county as his father, and spoke with the same brogue, or perhaps it was simply because they were the only two members of the household who had been intimately acquainted with hunger. He covered her hand with his and squeezed it a little in thanks.

“They are all in the drawing room,” she said gently. “Shall I take you through?”

But she did not need to, because Franklin’s youngest sister, seven-year-old Eleanor, had come out into the hall to see who was at the door.

“Matthew’s home!” she cried, and shot down the hall to throw herself at his legs like a cannonball of ruffles and curls.

“Eleanor, no!” Franklin cried.

“It’s all right,” Matthew said wearily. He leaned down to peel Eleanor’s arms from around his knees and then knelt down to embrace her. “I am quite accustomed to naughty children now.”

Eleanor flung her arms around his neck. “You were gone a long time,” she said accusingly.

“I am sorry, Norrie,” he said, rocking back and taking her by the shoulders with what he hoped was a sincere look.

She shifted her weight and glanced down at her feet before looking back up at him again. “Mama says you are blind now,” she said in a tentative voice. “And you can’t see anymore,” she clarified solemnly.

“That’s true.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Not anymore, no.”

“Can I see?”

“No, but I can show you my special walking stick,” he said. “Would you like to see how it works?”

Eleanor shyly gave the tiniest of nods and Matthew was startled to realize he could perceive it—so startled, fortunately, that he did not respond.

“You must speak your answers, Norrie,” Franklin prompted her. “He cannot see your gestures.”

“Yes,” she said stoutly, her bravery located, and Matthew could not help but smile. He kissed her forehead and stood up, taking the cane in his hand.

“It is a little longer than normal walking sticks because I do not need to lean on it, only to scan the ground ahead, like this,” he said, demonstrating the grip he preferred. “I just move it side to side, like so,” he said, making his way toward the large mass to his right that he remembered was the staircase. “And when I encounter an obstacle,” he said as the cane struck the bottom step, “the stick tells me before my feet do.”

“Or his face,” Franklin added wickedly, earning him a giggle from his baby sister.

“Can I try?” Eleanor asked, suddenly eager to understand everything about the magic of cane travel. This was what he liked best about being around children—they had no understanding of how the world ought to be, and therefore no pity at all for his condition. Their curiosity was simply natural, not ghoulish or prying, and he never resented answering their questions.

“Let him be, Eleanor,” Anna said. “Run and fetch the others now.”

“Hello, Mrs. Nelson,” Matthew said. Franklin’s parents had invited him to call them by their Christian names years ago, once he started college, but it seemed too presumptuous to continue the practice under the circumstances.

A little skip in her heart told him she noticed the retreat from intimacy, but she did not correct him. “Matthew,” she said, reaching forward to touch his arm, before sliding her hand down to clasp his. “I cannot express how glad I am to welcome you home, for tonight at least.”

“And I am glad to find myself so welcomed,” he said. “Though I fear I do not deserve it.”

“My darling boy,” she said, kissing his hand and then stepping forward to embrace him. After a brief moment of surprise, he embraced her back. “There is nothing to apologize for. You are here now.”

“You spoil me as always,” Matthew said, stepping back. More footsteps and heartbeats told him that Edward and 16-year-old Theodore had arrived in the hall.

“Matthew, my boy,” Edward boomed, and Anna stepped aside to deliver Matthew’s hand into an effusive two-handed handshake. “Knew you’d find your way home eventually.”

Edward’s gruff, offhand affection had always made him feel warm, and he was surprised to discover that it still did.

“Trying to, sir,” he said. He was not entirely sure that was true, but for a moment at least, he wanted it to be.

“Door’s open when you do, son,” he said, handing him off to Theodore. “Teddy, boy, say hello.”

“Hello, Matthew,” Theodore said, his voice an octave lower than it was last time they had spoken. Matthew could tell he was struggling to be polite, but his heart was anxious, and he was quick to withdraw his hand.

“You sound quite grown, Theodore,” Matthew said, in search of some safe ground for him to light upon. He had no patience for people who got nervous around him, but for Franklin’s sake he was resolved to behave himself.

“Yes sir,” he mumbled.

“Taller than me,” Franklin said.

“And still growing,” Anna complained. “I’ve let out his trousers three times this year alone.”

“Better than the alternative,” Matthew said bluntly, and then immediately regretted it. So much for behaving himself.

“Quite right my boy,” Edward agreed, clearing his throat. “Quite right. Where is our Candace, anyway?”

She had been standing in the drawing room doorway for some time, Matthew knew, her heart fluttering like hummingbird wings at the sight of him. She must be 18 by now, he realized. A young woman. She walked down the hall toward him with quick but measured steps, trying not to run, he supposed. He had imagined their reunion much differently, and was not sure he was ready to find out how badly he had disappointed her.

She had sent him off to war with a kiss—a long, lingering storybook kiss that he would never forget, that he always clung to in his most miserable moments in the trench. Being a little older than Matthew, Franklin had been called up first, and their grief over his departure coupled with the inevitability of Matthew’s own conscription hanging over them had led to a swift, absurdly intense secret courtship that had, at least in the moment, felt a little bit like love. Anna and Edward had said nothing, but Matthew was sure they could not possibly miss the way they sat next to each other at the piano or spent hours strolling along the riverfront together or stole glances at each other over dinner each night until they could safely escape into the back garden for half an hour of privacy.

They were fools for each other, Matthew and Candace, whispering and giggling about nothing, peppering each other with chaste little kisses and—just once—a little bit more behind the carriage house one evening when Edward and Anna were out. He could not even say what it was he loved about her, other than the fact that she was sweet and clever and determined and, well, conveniently near by—the perfect respite from the doom that threatened to crush him as he awaited word of his fate from the War Office.

Three and a half weeks later, it arrived.

He had refused to let the Nelsons come to the train station with him; he said it was because he didn’t want their last minutes together to be in such a loud, filthy place, but actually it was because he was afraid that he would lose his nerve. But she had slipped into his room as he was finishing packing and boldly backed him into the wardrobe to kiss him.

“Don’t go,” she had whispered, smoothing the lapels of his new uniform. It was, he later realized, quite possibly the last time it had ever been clean.

“I must.”

“We could run away together. Go out west where they will never find us.”

“I cannot do that. I should be ashamed to shirk my duty.”

“You have no duty to die, Matthew.”

“I shall not die,” he’d said, kissing her back, the foolish promise making him feel brave. “I shall live forever.”

“And I shall hold you to that,” she’d said, nipping his lip. “If you die I should be very cross indeed.”

“I will not let that happen,” he’d vowed, and oh, what a stupid romantic hero he’d felt like when he said it. “I will come home to you, Candace. I promise.”

She had written every week, and though he could rarely piece together half a page’s worth of thoughts fit to share with her, she had spared him nothing—her intention to attend Vassar, her volunteer work with the Red Cross, the escapades of the increasingly adventurous Eleanor, her insistence on working alongside Theodore at her father’s plant so that she could learn the meatpacking business, too. (The draft had left him short of men, and irregular as it was to see his lovely daughter walking through the abbatoir, clipboard in hand and the hem of her skirt bloody to the ankles, he was grateful for her help.)

Strangely, it had been much harder for Matthew and Franklin to get letters to each other than it was to communicate with home, and he had never wanted to spoil the few they did manage to exchange by mentioning Candace, lest he disapprove of the match. Not that he was even certain it was a match at all—as the bullets rained down all around him in France, it had never occurred to him that he would live to find out whether his feelings for her were true or simply a dream of home to keep him warm at night.

“Took you long enough,” she said softly, warmly, and he swallowed roughly at the sound of her voice, his feelings too confused to name.

“Candace,” he said. “It’s good to—hear your voice.”

“And I am very happy to hear yours again, too,” she said, kissing his cheek with a liberty that he could tell from the sudden popcorn burst of startled heartbeats that they had managed to keep their secret better than he thought. He caught a whiff of salt as she did, and when she dabbed at her eyes he understood why.

“Thank you for the sweater, by the way,” he said, twisting his cane around between his hands as if he were slowly drilling to the core of the Earth. “It’s, ah, quite soft.”

“I am sorry it did not reach you in time.”

“All the same,” Matthew said. He opened his mouth to say more, but then closed it. There was really nothing left to say, it seemed. Not here, anyway.

They were saved by Mrs. Flanagan, as always, signaling to Anna that dinner was ready.

“Did you seduce my sister while I was away?” Franklin hissed as they followed his parents into the dining room.

“Do you really want to know the answer?”

“God damn you, Devil,” Franklin said. “We will speak more of this later.”

Matthew sighed. Perhaps he should have mentioned it sooner.

Dinner did not go nearly as badly as he feared. There was a painful moment during grace when Edward added “and the restoration of _both_ our sons,” to the blessing, but otherwise he was grateful to find that his return and his condition were barely remarked upon.

No one offered to cut his food or help in any way, nor did they ask about his journey home or his recent illness, lest it recall his desperate days in the broom shop. Nor did they ask him about his future plans. Franklin had told him that Edward had remained steadfast in his offer to send Matthew to law school, but Matthew had thus far been noncommittal about it, and he had no doubt Franklin had warned them not to force the issue tonight.

The one thing they did ask him about was his teaching, which he appreciated. Being a schoolmaster was a respectable occupation—not as fine as business or the law, perhaps, but it was a more dignified station than any penniless Irish Catholic orphan had the right to aspire to, much less a blind one. (They did not need to know that the two hours a day he taught were all he had the courage to endure, or that sometimes he could not even manage that much because some of the older boys’ voices reminded him of the ones he heard crying for their mothers beyond the barbed wire.)

Otherwise, they carried on as always, catching up on their day, exchanging news and gossip, peppering Theodore and Candace with questions about school, and arguing over politics. Women had won the vote in New York the year before, and Candace had, to Edward’s dismay, become a rather ardent socialist. Eleanor then declared that she was a socialist, too, prompting Matthew’s first proper laugh in more than a year.

After dinner, Eleanor was sent to bed and the rest retired to the drawing room. Franklin dealt out four hands for bridge while Candace and Matthew stationed themselves at the piano. He ran a few scales to check that it in tune—it was, of course—then instinctively reached forward to touch the sheet music on the stand in front of him.

“What are you working on now?” he asked.

“The Chopin duet we were practicing—before,” she said. “Do you think you can play it from memory?”

Matthew bit his lip. He probably still could, but he knew that wasn’t the question she was really asking. “What about some Christmas carols instead? I can play, you can sing.”

“Very well,” she conceded.

The carols came easily to him—the children had been practicing them for weeks at St. Agnes’, and he had sometimes been drafted to accompany them if Sister Catherine’s arthritis was acting up. And it was wonderful to play on a proper baby grand again—the sound was so rich and resonant it nearly brought tears to his eyes.

It was the closest thing he’d felt to content in a year and a half. He had a belly full of rich food and the taste of good wine on his tongue and the crackle of the fire and the heady scent of the Christmas tree and the laughter of the Nelsons as the card game turned cutthroat the way it always did and above it all, Candace’s sweet, clear soprano—

And then suddenly, it was all too much. He managed to accompany Candace to the end of her verse, at least, before stopping and leaning rather heavily on one arm to let her finish _a capella_.

“Are you all right?” she asked softly.

He flexed his fingers a few times to show off his crooked pinkie and told a half-lie by way of an excuse: “I tripped and broke my finger on my third day in France. It likes to remind me of my clumsiness whenever it gets cold.”

“Then we must warm you up,” Candace said, sitting next to him on the bench and clasping his hand between hers. “Teddy,” she called across the room. “Let us show off our new gramophone for Matthew!”

Theodore set down his cards and moved to an unfamiliar mass on the sideboard. After a few minutes of fiddling with the device, a rather tinny, shaky rendition of a Scott Joplin rag began to emanate from the thing.

“Not that awful jazz again, Teddy,” Edward grumbled.

Matthew could hear Theodore’s disappointed heart tumble from across the room. “I quite like it, myself,” he said, taking the opportunity to reclaim his hand from Candace’s.

“Me too,” added Candace.

“I think you’re outnumbered, Father,” Franklin said.

“And what a blessing it is, to be outnumbered by one’s children,” Anna said, settling the matter. “The Mendelssohn next, though, Teddy dear.”

Musical crisis averted, the Nelsons returned to their bridge, while Candace and Matthew remained on the piano bench, half hidden by the raised lid of the baby grand.

“I know that much has changed for you,” Candace said softly. “But my feelings have not.”

Matthew winced and shook his head. “I am not suited for such affections anymore.”

“You are hardly the first man to lose a part of himself in a war,” she said. “I supervised the slaughtering floor at father’s plant for more than a year, Matthew. There is nothing that can frighten me anymore.”

“I do not mean my eyes.”

 “I was not speaking of your eyes either.”

“Candace,” he said gently. “I cannot give you what you want.”

“You do not get to decide what I want,” she said pointedly.

“No,” Matthew conceded. “But I know what you deserve, and I know that it is more than what I can offer.”

“Matthew, whatever happened over there—”

“I am not capable of love anymore,” Matthew said, abruptly standing up. “I’m sorry.”

Candace caught his arm. “I don’t believe that.”

“Believe what you wish, then,” Matthew said, twisting his arm out of her grasp. “But it will only prolong your grief.”

Just then, Franklin looked up from his cards to see Matthew making his way around the piano towards the sofa by the fire as hurriedly as he dared. He dropped his cards on the table and stood as well.

“Candace, finish my hand,” he said. “I forgot that I promised Matthew one of those cigars that Father’s friend brought up from Ybor City.”

Then, just like that, Franklin’s hand was on his arm, steering him towards Edward’s study across the hall. As soon as they reached the threshold he pushed Matthew inside and yanked the door shut hard.

“What is going on between you and my sister?” he demanded, thrusting Matthew’s hand against the back of the large wingback reading chair next to the bookcase. “Sit.”

“Nothing,” he said, buying some time to think by taking too long to establish the orientation of the chair before sitting. “It was never—it was a brief flirtation on the eve of war, and nothing more.”

Franklin sat on the edge of the desk, facing him. “That did not look like the end of a brief flirtation.”

“We wrote to each other,” Matthew conceded. “But it was just—something to make me feel a little less like the world was ending all around me.”

“How much less, Matthew? What did you promise her?”

“Fear not, Foggy, her virtue is intact.”

“It is her heart I care about more.”

“Hearts mend,” Matthew said sharply. “I did not promise to marry her, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

It was not. “Candace is an extraordinarily clever girl, but she was not even 17, Matthew. You took advantage.”

“There were boys younger than her dying next to me every day,” Matthew said roughly. “Forgive me for not being sufficiently concerned that I might cause her a few hours weeping into a feather pillow.”

“I know,” Franklin sighed, his anger burned out. “I would see them coming off the boats at Le Havre every day. They were just children, some of them. Schoolboys as young as Theodore. When they returned they looked so very old.”

He wiped his eyes and began to rummage through his father’s desk for the cigar box. He fished out two cigars, snipped the ends, and lit one before handing it to Matthew.

“Here, take this one,” he said, touching the cigar to Matthew’s fingers. “There’s an ashtray on the table to your right.”

Then he lit his own and moved to the window, opening it a few inches so the smoke could escape. “They can’t understand,” he said. “Hell, even I can’t fully understand. But them? They’re all infants.”

It was a pitiless assessment, but Matthew did not disagree.

Franklin’s post had been next door to the largest British army hospital in Le Havre, Franklin told him, but there were seven more in the town. When Franklin had said he had seen many wounded, Matthew had not understood how many tens of thousands he meant.

“It felt rather like the waiting room to Hell,” he said. “One was constantly wrenched back and forth between perfect banality and utter horror, and you never knew when, or for how long you’d be in either state. Of course, I do not presume to compare my experiences to yours—”

“It is not a contest, Foggy. I don’t suppose there was ever a nightmare dissuaded from its purpose by the mere fact that it could have been worse.”

“No,” Franklin said. And then: “They’re supposed to stop eventually, right? People don’t just—live like this for the rest of their lives, do they?”

“I don’t know.”

Franklin let out a little sob at that.

Foggy’s tragedy, Matthew decided, was that he had come home with his humanity intact, and that had left him too tender and raw to bear the tiny scrap of war that he had witnessed. At least the wounds on Matthew’s soul had been cauterized—though the trouble of it was that it had left him with no idea how to comfort the living anymore. “Perhaps you understand a little better why I’ve stayed away,” he said instead.

“Yes.” Foggy puffed on his cigar and shook his head. “I envy you, in a way. Having somewhere else to go.”

“Franklin, you are as rich as a god. You could go anywhere you wanted,” Matthew said harshly. “What you envy is the fact that I am willing to disappoint your parents, while you are not.”

“Yes.”

“Do not envy me that,” Matthew said, with genuine regret. “The cost was too high.”

“I’ve missed you terribly, Matthew.”

Matthew drew on his cigar. He could not bear to have this conversation now. Or ever. “The more fool you.”

“Be that as it may,” Franklin said. “I know there is a great darkness in you now that I cannot fix. Maybe you’ll find your way out of it, maybe you won’t. But I will not stop being your friend, even if you do not feel you can be mine. Am I clear?”

“I would like to go home now,” Matthew said, stabbing his cigar into the ashtray.

“You are home.”

Matthew sighed and decided not to fight. “I would like to return to St. Agnes’ now.”

* * *

Twenty minutes later he was in a carriage on his way back downtown. It had been relatively easy to make his regrets to the Nelsons—he still tired easily, he was not accustomed to such rich food, he was expected at dawn Mass in the morning—but harder to convince Franklin not to ride with him. Still, he had managed to put him off with a curt, “I am perfectly capable of sitting in a carriage without an attendant.” It was ruder than Franklin deserved, he allowed, but he was desperate to leave.

But when the cab arrived in front of St. Agnes’, he leaned out the window and asked the driver to take him to the corner of 10th and 48th instead.

“Not for free,” the driver said irritably.

“I know my friend paid you double to look after me. Three blocks further won’t cut too far into your profit.”

It only took a little more persuading before the driver agreed. He even threw in directions from the cab to the front door for free.

His old apartment was on the sixth floor; he paused at the bottom of the stairs to listen before climbing up. Snoring. He sighed. Snoring meant drunk. Drunk meant he shouldn’t be alone.

He took the stairs by two and let himself in quietly. It was freezing cold; he quickly moved to the radiator to open the valve a little before pulling back the quilt that partitioned off the bed. Castle was flat on his back, one arm hanging off the bed, a bottle of something—rum, by the smell of it—mostly empty on the floor next to his hand.

Castle’s wife and children had been taken during the first wave of the Spanish flu last February, and it had been suicidal grief, not valor, that had propelled him up over the trench wall and past the wire in an attempt to take out a vicious German mortar team that was determined to pound them to death. They very nearly had, until Castle took cover behind a dead horse and began to pick them off one by one with his sniper rifle. But before he did, they managed to turn the mortar toward him and let one last round off, missing him by ten feet but leaving him with a leg barely worth saving for his trouble.

The sixth story apartment? He’d chosen it on purpose. He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—articulate why, but he didn’t need to. Matthew understood. For men as broken as them, the only proof of life was pain.

“Cass,” Matthew murmured, shaking the foot of his good leg. (He’d quickly learned that trying to wake him any other way was an excellent way to get a black eye.) “Hey.”

Castle kicked a little and made an indistinct grunt, and Matthew was not certain his eyes were open, but the slight uptick in his heartbeat told him he was awake.

“Roll over,” Matthew prompted softly, shucking his clothes down to his johnnies. Castle turned onto his side, which would quell the snores, and Matthew climbed into the narrow space between him and the wall.

This was how they had slept in the trenches, packed like sardines beneath a lean-to built into the wall to provide a bit of cover from the rain and ash. Waking alone was terrifying, because it meant either you had been abandoned behind the line or everyone else was dead, and neither one of those boded for a long and happy life. As long as there was someone near you still breathing, though, there was hope.

The truth was that four months after Matthew moved away, neither one of them had grown any more used to sleeping alone. Maggie would be wondering where he was, he knew, and he was surprised to note that he was a little sorry about that.

His heart was growing less frozen by the day, and he did not dare let himself contemplate what he might find once the ice thawed.

But tonight, at least, he was safe, with his arm curled beneath his head and the sound of Castle’s heart beating steadily against his back, and a tenuous calm covering them both. The bells at Clinton Church tolled midnight and after a moment’s focus, listened as the children’s choir began the opening bars of _O, Holy Night_.

He closed his eyes and slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To avoid Franklin/Frank mixups, Frank is just going to be "Castle" from here on out.
> 
> So, kids, will they or won't they? Are we feeling some Fratt love or is this just platonic snuggling? (I seriously have not decided.)


	4. Christmas Day 1918: Unexpected Oranges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we get a deeper look into Matthew and Castle's friendship, Matthew's childhood, and Sister Claire's complicated relationship with religious life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that there are a couple of instances of period-appropriate but outdated language to describe Claire's ethnic heritage (not the n-word, and not used in a derogatory way), as well as some rather anachronistic acceptance of it for the sake of storytelling. (In other words: St. Agnes' was unlikely to have a non-white nun in its service in 1918, but I didn't want to segregate her out of the story entirely, so let's just assume her order's Mother Superior is a bit progressive for the times.)
> 
> Apologies if this chapter is a bit rougher than the previous ones. I just want to get as much drafted and posted as I can before I have to go back to work! There may be revisions later. Feedback is always welcome.

When they awoke, Castle’s bad leg was lying across both of Matthew’s, and he hissed when Matthew shifted his weight. The bells at Clinton Church were tolling nine; they had missed dawn Mass but still had two hours before the main morning Mass.  

Castle’s dreams had woken them both in the night, a burst of thrashing and shouting that only subsided into indistinct sobbing when Matthew curled up behind him and wrapped his arm around his chest, burying his head in the curve of Castle’s neck.

It had begun as a way to calm Castle on the journey home, so he would not further damage the shredded muscles of his leg. Castle had already bullied the doctors at the field hospital into letting him keep it; any more damage and it was almost certainly going to have to come off, assuming it didn’t kill him first. There was not enough morphine in the world to sedate every man in the hospital convoy with bad dreams, and Castle was so strong that when they tried to tie him down, he dislocated an elbow trying to break free. But somehow Matthew was able to get through to him, and the overworked nurses were happy to leave him to it.

His trick was to listen to Castle’s breathing, and tighten his hold the instant it started to tick back up again. The extra pressure, applied at exactly the right time, seemed to serve as a kind of seawall against the coming wave of panic. It didn’t stop the waves from coming, but it did seem to mitigate their strength well enough to keep him still. It was this practice that taught Matthew the most about focusing his senses and filtering out the rest.

By the time they landed in New York, the leg was out of danger, but the nightmares were as vivid and violent as ever. It just seemed cruel to stop.

(And if, when they’d had too much to drink, which was most nights for both of them during those first few months, Castle rolled over to face him afterward, and if their hands wandered beneath the drawstrings of their flannel johnnies, neither one of them complained. That was all they did—they never kissed and they certainly never discussed it come morning—but it was enough. It was the only thing besides pain that reminded them that they were still alive.)

“You gotta take better care of that leg,” Matthew mumbled. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to lose it after all.”

“Just the nerves today, Red,” Castle said, sitting up and repositioning his leg on the mattress carefully with his hand. “Toes are still pink as roses.”

Matthew grunted and hauled himself up as well, then leaned forward, drew up the leg of Castle’s union suit to his knee, and gently frisked the leg.

“That’s enough, Florence Nightingale,” Castle grumbled, but didn’t push him away.

“You’ve got a hot spot right—here,” he said, pressing his finger into a warm, swollen pocket on the side of his too-skinny, crumpled-up calf. “What is that?”

“It’s just a bruise. Caught the edge of a keg at work the other day, nothing more,” Castle said irritably. “How the fuck did you know that was there?”

“I didn’t, but when your leg hurts that much, it’s usually something,” Matthew said, though that wasn’t quite true. It had been more than intuition, but he couldn’t exactly explain what it was instead. He’d sensed it when Castle’s leg had been slung over his—was it possible that he’d been able to feel it through the flannel that divided their skin?

“Was it really a keg, or did you get this in the ring?”

“Really a keg,” Castle said, grabbing one of Matthew’s hands and pressing it against his cheek, where another hot, swollen spot flared. “That’s from the ring.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed, you know that?” Matthew said, lightly slapping the bruise and ignoring Castle’s wince. “You can’t possibly move as fast as them.”

“Not yet, maybe,” Castle said. “But I’m a hell of a lot stronger. Besides, the money’s good, and Josie don’t mind my rugged looks.”

Matthew sighed. He’d already reminded Castle more times than he could count that his own father had died in the ring, and that the sport was no safer in 1918 than it was in 1907. He’d begun to wonder whether his friend was deliberately misconstruing his warning as a challenge.

“Well, I’ll not bet against you, then,” Matthew said instead, sliding carefully out of bed and shuffling, hand outstretched, toward the bathroom. Despite the headache from last night’s wine, he knew he did not need to do this: It was only for Castle’s eyes that he did so.

God, what a luxury a private bathroom was after the orphanage, no matter how dingy and spare Castle’s was. Matthew had a washstand to himself in his room, but he had to use the boys’ lavatory to relieve himself and go all the way next door to the rectory to bathe. (He had used the boy’s lav for that, too, at first, but it had proved impossible to keep the curiosity-seekers away long enough for him to get any sustained privacy there.)

Lantom was always kind about it, and sometimes Matthew would stay afterwards for a glass of whiskey and some conversation, but that really didn’t make the situation feel any more normal. But the orphanage could only pay him with room and board, which meant his only income was his meager disability allowance; until he found more remunerative employment, he’d have to stay there.  

Still, a private bathtub would be awfully nice, he thought jealously as turned on the hot-water tap.

It felt strange to want things again.

He washed up in the sink as the small steel tub filled, for he had bathed yesterday before dinner and did not need the hot water nearly as badly as Castle did.

Even behind the washroom door, Matthew could hear the pain in his limp this morning, the tiny sucked-in hiss every time he put weight on his left foot. For all that Castle had harassed Matthew about using his walking stick in the beginning, he refused one of his own. Hopefully the hot soak would help ease things a bit, and besides, Matthew’s nose told him it had been a while since his friend had had a proper wash.

“Drew a bath for you,” Matthew said, opening the door.

Castle grunted his assent and hobbled over from the stove, where he’d just started the coffee.

Matthew averted his face out of habit as Castle shucked his clothes, then helped him balance on his bad leg so he could step into the tub with his good leg first.

“How do you do this when I’m not here?” Matthew asked calmly, as if he were merely curious rather than concerned. “When the pain gets like this?”

“Rag and a bucket,” Castle said bluntly, easing himself down into the water. “Don’t need your help for this part, Red.”

“You’re welcome,” Matthew said, closing the door behind him.

He cut and buttered a thick slice of not-quite-stale brown bread, wolfing it down over the sink while the coffee percolated. Something new in the corner cut through the hangover enough to catch his attention—a low cabinet that radiated cold. He knelt by it and opened the door: It was a new icebox. He felt around inside and located a bottle of buttermilk—Castle loved the stuff—a couple of not-too-withered winter apples, some bacon, a few onions, a couple of eggs, and a chunk of cheese.

Matthew smiled, a little relieved. The truth was that every Saturday when Castle visited, Matthew always wondered if it was the last time. It wasn’t that he was doing any worse back in the world than Matthew was, really—they were broken in different ways, but about in equal-sized pieces—but Castle lived so recklessly that he was starting to worry it was on purpose.

And yet—he’d bought an icebox. You don’t invest in keeping food fresh unless you plan on sticking around to eat it.

And yet.

There seemed to be a lot of that going around lately.

On the stove, the coffee began to boil. He turned off the flame and reached up to grab the two tin mugs from the shelf above the sink.

“Coffee ready?” Castle asked, shuffling out of the bath in a fresh pair of johnnies. He was walking more easily now, and God knows he smelled a far sight better than he had before.

“Perfect timing,” Matthew said, serving them both and holding one out toward him. “Coming to church this morning?”

“’Fraid I don’t have much to say to God that’s fit for Christmas this year,” Castle said. “But I’ll walk you back over there.”

 _Over there_ , not _home_. Castle’s unspoken invitation to return to their apartment instead hung heavily in the air between them, and Matthew sincerely hoped he would not voice it now. He and Castle could not live together forever; someday his friend’s grief would end and there would be a new woman at the end of it—someone who would likely not appreciate having her new betrothed’s blind war buddy underfoot all the time. Besides, he did enjoy his work, when he was able to concentrate on it, and he did like being able to set aside his disability allowance instead of spending it on room and board every month. (He knew Castle would offer to support him, and Matthew would refuse, and neither of them would be happy about it.)

No, it was better this way, and they both knew it.

Instead, Castle gruffly offered to cook up some eggs, which Matthew did accept, and afterward they dressed and went out into the winter morning.

“Hell’s Kitchen don’t look half-bad in the snow,” Castle remarked as they walked, almost regretfully. He was from Queens, himself—practically a country boy—and Hell’s Kitchen’s close, crumbling slums were his idea of hell—or would have been before France, anyway. Which he felt made it a perfect place for him to wash up now, all things considered, though the sudden brief arrival of something beautiful no doubt interfered with his self-punishment.

“Don’t worry. It’ll all melt by the afternoon, and it’ll be back to its usual, muddy self,” Matthew said wryly. He swept his cane out before him, noting that the paving stones were wet but gritty, not slick with ice. “The sidewalks are already clear.”

Then, in a burst of boldness, Matthew let go of Castle’s arm and began to walk on his own. Being Christmas, and snowy, the streets were unusually quiet, allowing him to interpret his surroundings in a way that he still was not able to do on a bustling day. Today, the taps of his cane were ringing clearly off of every surface around him, and almost all of it was standing still.

“Heaven knows we’ve walked this route enough times that I’ve got it memorized by now,” he said, by way of explanation. Then, he hoped unnecessarily: “You’ll warn me if there’s something dangerous ahead?”

“Sure, Red,” Castle said, dropping back behind him.

It was just three blocks to St. Agnes’ but it felt like a mile through No Man’s Land on a foggy morning, with forms swishing in and out of his awareness at irregular intervals—though instead of horses and soldiers and tanks, it was carriages and street lamps and front stoops. Still, it wasn’t entirely alien to him; Hell’s Kitchen was his home, after all, and during every walk he’d taken the past few months with Castle, he’d been studying its contours and its sounds and its scents, slowly remapping his world step by step, block by block.

“Turn here, right?” Matthew asked over his shoulder. “Or is it one more block? I lost count.”

“You tell me,” Castle said.

Matthew stopped at the corner and opened up his senses. The lingering scent of sugar and vanilla and poppyseeds from O’Neil’s Bake Shop across the street and the warm, metal-and-leather, straw-and-shit-tinged cloud from the 49th Street police stables just ahead told him he was in the right place. He listened carefully; there were a few carriages and automobiles about, but none nearby.

He crossed the street and they turned up 9th Avenue. The street was a little busier, but not much; he noted how it just _felt_ wider. The taps of his cane took just a few microseconds longer to echo back to him across the broad road, and the breeze was different, too—ebbing and dancing more freely with more open space for the currents to gather and play off one another. The smells were different here, too; almost all the ground floor tenants were businesses, and even though most were closed for the holiday, the street was still redolent of their wares. He caught the earthy scent of the kind greengrocer he liked to eavesdrop on, the dusty papery bookseller, the wool and cotton of the dressmaker’s shop, the bitter smoky tang of the blacksmith, the sharp lye soap of the Chinese laundry.

He and Castle didn’t speak as they walked, but he could hear him limping steadily along behind him. This was going pretty well, all things considered—perhaps soon he could walk to and from Castle’s apartment by himself.

The thought thrilled him. He was fortunate to be surrounded by people who wanted to help him, but that didn’t make accepting it any easier. No kindness in the world could erase the feeling of his knife carving through the cartilage of the dead German boy’s ear, or the sick thrill he’d felt when he’d given up and torn it loose.

And yet he continued to live among them as if he was somehow still one of them. To eat their food and take their arms and listen them read to him. To teach them and converse with them and sometimes, every once in a while, to venture a joke with them.

And yet.

Suddenly, the bells of Clinton Church rang almost right above him, flooding his ears with sound and obliterating the world around him. He took one more startled step, caught his toe on an upheaved corner of a paving stone, and the next thing he knew he was tumbling to the ground face first, hat and cane flying, glasses shattering.

“Red!” Castle cried, leaping to his side to help him stand. “Shit, man, I’m sorry. I didn’t see the crack. Are you all right?”

Matthew winced and touched his chin. He knew from the smell even before his fingers touched the wetness that it was bleeding. “I’m fine,” he said. “Just took a tumble. It happens.”

“I should have been watching more closely,” Castle muttered, pressing his cane back into his hand and shoving his hat back onto his head. “I think you’ll need a new pair of glasses.”

He placed the glasses into Matthew’s hands so he could feel where the glass had come entirely out of one eye and cracked so badly that it flaked away at his touch in the other. But the frames were still sound, he thought. Small mercies.

“Then I shall hope nobody looks too closely at me for a while,” Matthew said with a pained smile.

“I hope you know a back way to sneak into St. Agnes’ because I don’t need Sister Margaret giving me the evil eye for not bringing you home in one piece.”

“It’s all right. I shall already be in enough trouble for not sending word I would be spending the night elsewhere.”

“You’ve gotta come home, Red,” Castle said, finally. “You’re not a kid. You don’t have to live like one.”

“Enough of that foolishness,” Matthew said. “We must both learn to stand on our own two feet eventually. It is simply taking me longer than you. Let us not make that harder than it already is.”

“It ain’t fair,” Castle grumbled.

“It is what the present circumstances allow,” Matthew said grimly, reaching toward him. “Perhaps I will take your arm now, after all.”

* * *

Matthew spared Castle’s hide by going into the orphanage alone, and he was glad that he did, because Sister Maggie’s rage was so hot sometimes that he sometimes wondered if the flame of it could momentarily relieve him of his blindness. She never shouted, either, which made things worse—the calm of her voice somehow concentrating the heat of her anger even further. By the time she had quietly rebuked Matthew for not coming home, breaking his glasses, and missing Mass, and then packed him off to the infirmary, he felt quite scalded.

Sister Claire was waiting for him when he arrived.

“I’m sorry to make you late to Mass on my account, Sister,” Matthew said, allowing her to guide him to a chair near the window so she could examine his cut.

“You aren’t,” Claire said crisply. “The new baby is feverish. I just got her to sleep, by the way, and if you wake her I will leave you with a scar so deep no woman will ever look at you again.”

“You simply want to keep me all to yourself,” Matthew said, gritting his teeth as she began to dab his wound with alcohol. Of all the nuns here, she was the one he had the easiest rapport with—it was the only way to make the enforced intimacy of his first few weeks at St. Agnes’ bearable.

“I have enough children to look after, thank you very much,” Sister Claire said. “Hold still, now. I need to put in a few stitches. And keep quiet. I was not joking about the baby.”

He winced as she threaded the needle in, but willed iron into his neck so he would not flinch. But Claire was good at her job, and she stitched him efficiently and as gently as she could.

“How old are you?” Matthew asked.

“Excuse me?”

“I only mean to say—you seem very young to be as skilled as you are.”

“The children give me a lot of practice,” Sister Claire said, taping a bandage to his jaw. “Come back every morning and evening for fresh gauze until it stops weeping.”

“Thank you, Sister,” Matthew said, wincing as he stood.

“Are you injured anywhere else?”

“Only bruised,” Matthew said, hesitating in the doorway. “I do not suppose you would mind telling me how presentable I am for Mass?”

“Your suit is a bit muddy at the knees, but not torn,” Claire said. “The bandage is not bloody, but the skin is bruised around it. And you missed a spot when you shaved this morning.”

Matthew flushed red and remained in the doorway, one hand on the frame. She had not answered the question he had meant to ask.

He cleared his throat. “My glasses broke, you see,” he said tentatively.

“I do not keep spares on hand,” Claire said apologetically. “Tomorrow morning we shall go have new ones made up for you.”

“Ah.”

She stood facing him, her head cocked slightly with an unspoken question. “I would really prefer you go upstairs and rest today in the meantime,” she said. “I’ll inform Sister Maggie that you’re to miss Mass.”

“Thank you,” Matthew said softly.

Claire gave a tiny shrug. “Just one day, Mr. Murdock.”

“Call me Matthew, please.”

“I’ll bring your dinner up later, Mr. Murdock.”

* * *

Safely upstairs and away from curious eyes, he changed into fresh trousers, a clean shirt, and Candace’s sweater. He was sorry for hurting her feelings, he supposed, but he could not afford to be sentimental over a warm, well-made garment in winter.

He was not particularly tired, but he stretched out on the bed anyway and closed his eyes because there was little else for him to do. He directed his focus on Mass for a while, listened to the hymns and the readings and the sermon. Father Lantom was in fine form this morning, but when he turned to St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas to reflect on the Armistice, Matthew shut his ears and prayed for sleep.

There was no such thing as a just war, and no man who has not seen it with their own eyes, not even a man as learned as Lantom, could ever understand that.

But sleep didn’t come. He turned his focus toward the kitchen, where the novices were preparing dinner for the children, and then a little further out to the nursery, where Sister Mary Thomas and Sister Louisa were minding the littlest ones. He liked listening to the babies—they were the last pure things on earth, and he enjoyed their little coos and snuffles and yawns, though he could do without the crying. When one started howling in the nursery, he shifted his attention to the infirmary, where he could hear Claire pacing with the newborn, who’d woken up and gotten fussy again. She was singing softly to her in another language—maybe Italian? He wasn’t sure.  

 _They are the lucky ones,_ Matthew thought. _At least they didn’t know any other way to live._

His own mother had died in childbirth, but he’d had his grandmother until he was 9 and his father until he was 10. It was hardly the sweet, comfortable childhood Franklin had, but it had been a mostly happy one. His father was a stevedore at the docks and made extra money as a bare-knuckles boxer on the weekends, while his grandmother took in piecework and mending. Money was always tight, though, and they’d had more than their fair share of cold, hungry nights, but his father refused to let Matthew leave school so he could start working. “In America you have the chance to earn your living with your mind, not your hands,” his father always said, his Galway brogue thickening over the word _America_. “I won’t let you waste it.”

His grandmother was not literate and his father only barely more learned, so as soon as he learned his letters, every Saturday included a trip to the Carnegie Library a few blocks away to pick out a new book for him to read to them in the evenings. Twain, Dickens, Hawthorne—for three beautiful years he’d whiled away the dark hours with one story or another.

He rolled onto his side and tried to cram back angry, frustrated tears. He wished he could read again. He had nothing but dark hours now.

Time passed. The bell tolled noon, and then one, and not long after that, there was a soft knock at his door.

“Mr. Murdock?” Claire called. “I’ve brought you some dinner if you’re hungry.”

“One moment,” he said hoarsely. He stood and straightened his clothes, then made his way to the washstand to wet down his hair and carefully wash away any tear streaks, resignedly admitting that one of the few parts of his personality to survive the war intact was his vanity. He lowered his eyes and answered the door.

He cleared the books Franklin had brought him off the small writing desk crammed between the wardrobe and the window so there would be a place to put the tray.

“There is turkey, oyster dressing, cranberry jam, mashed turnips and potatoes, creamed onions, buttered cabbage, and white bread,” Claire said, guiding his fork around the plate. “Over here is a bit of plum pudding and an orange.”

“How did you come by oranges this year?” Matthew asked with surprise, lifting the fruit to his nose and breathing in the scent. They must have cost a fortune.

“An anonymous donation,” Claire said. “We received a crate from Florida yesterday.”

_I forgot that I promised Matthew one of those cigars that Father’s friend brought up from Ybor City._

Foggy, you wily bastard.

“Would you like some company while you eat?” Claire asked.

“I would not keep you from your dinner, Sister.”

“I have already eaten,” she said. “But if you would prefer privacy I will come back for the plate in an hour.”

“No,” Matthew said, the word leaping forth before he had time to consider it. “You may stay.”

Sister Claire pushed aside some of the books in order to sit on the bed. “I could read to you, if you like,” she said, picking up one of the volumes. “ _The Collected Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson_. I have heard of him.”

“Are you an educated woman, Sister?”

“A little,” she said. “Less than I’d like to be, but more than my grandfather thought I should be.”

“He did not want you to cultivate your mind?”

“He did not want me to be disappointed by how little I would be allowed to use it,” she said. She paused, and her heart suddenly began to beat very quickly. “My mother was Cuban, my father was colored, their marriage was illegal, and I am a woman, Mr. Murdock. The world has never been particularly interested in the cultivation of _my_ mind.”

“The world’s loss is the Church’s gain, then,” Matthew said.

“The Church is no more interested in my mind than anyone else,” Sister Claire said. “But the convent has long been a respectable place to hide inconvenient girls, and after my parents died, my grandparents sent me here. It is not the life I would have chosen for myself, but it allows me to have a meaningful profession, and a nun’s habit accords me more rather more respect on the street than is customary for a woman of my complexion. I know vanity is a sin, but I cannot make myself repent of it.”

“It is not vanity to wish to live with dignity,” Matthew said, shifting his chair a quarter-turn to face her as he peeled the orange. The scent was floral and sweet and sharp and transported him almost instantly back to the Nelsons’ kitchen on Christmas morning.

She hummed in vague agreement and picked up the volume of Emerson. “I have only heard of Emerson, but I have never read any of his works,” she said. “Would you indulge me?”

“Father Lantom would say that he was not a very good Christian,” Matthew said.

“And I am not a very good nun,” Sister Claire said. “Shall I start at the beginning?”

She read until the clock struck two, before reluctantly slipping a marker in the book and closing it.

“Thank you,” Matthew said, just as reluctant for the hour to end. “I have missed my books very much.”

Sister Claire did not answer, just briefly rested her hand on his shoulder as she cleared his plates. “Come down for supper later if you feel up for it,” she said. Then, almost as an afterthought: “There is a gift for you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ybor City is now a part of Tampa, Florida (where canon-Foggy's parents retired to). It's known for its cigars, gambling, and is very close to Florida's leading citrus-producing regions. Ybor City and Tampa are also very near Tarpon Springs, which has the largest Greek (ahem) community in the United States. Another fun fact about Tampa is that it was also the epicenter of Florida's bootlegging industry--and we're just weeks away from Prohibition. 
> 
> I honestly have no real plan for any of this information. What do you say? Should our boys eventually go to Florida? Or should Florida come to New York? Or will my fic completely abandon this line of thought entirely and go somewhere else? Only time will tell. 
> 
> I'm hoping to get at least one more chapter done before my vacation is over, but once I'm back at work, posting may become more irregular, so please subscribe if you haven't! 
> 
> In the meantime, your comments and ideas are giving me life. xoxo


	5. Early 1919: Patience and Fortitude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matthew continues to thaw, Franklin continues to spoil him rotten, Bess Mahoney opens up his world in an unexpected way, and Castle helps him observe a painful anniversary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Picking up the pace a bit in this chapter--I never intended this to be a recovery fic, and I've covered this ground a lot before in a different work, so I'm trying not to repeat myself too much here. But for now it's a useful way to move just a few more pieces into place before we move on to the next major chapter in Matthew's life. 
> 
> None of this is beta’d, so please holler if you spot something. I’ll probably be going back and tweaking here and there too. 
> 
> The New York Public Library's main branch is located at 42nd and 5th Avenue, a few blocks south and a few avenues east of St. Agnes. (I suppose I should just decide where it is. Let's say 49th and 8th.) To reach it, Foggy and Matt would cross through Times Square, which is (hence the name) where the New York Times building was located.

The gift turned out to be a small gramophone and ten records. All together, they must have cost Franklin more than the oranges did.

“Scott Joplin, Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton—my goodness, he must be a cheerful fellow,” Maggie said, flipping through the albums. “Claude Debussy, Gustav Mahler, Frederic Chopin, Igor Stravinsky, George Gershwin, and Irving Berlin. That’s quite a variety.”

Ragtime, romantics, and Tin Pan Alley—he was grateful for all of it. Without his books, his mind had become dull and restless, and planning lessons and grading homework did little to awaken it. To tell the truth, he’d become so bored that it was getting harder and harder not to eavesdrop on things that were improper or impolite. (He was pleased that the kindly greengrocer had such a loving relationship with his wife, and was largely amused by the silliness of the sins Father Lantom had to endure, but he longed for more elevated stimulation.)

“We shall have to devise a way for me to tell them apart,” Matthew said, touching the cardboard sleeves.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” Maggie said. “There is a school for the blind on 39th Street. It is where we have always sent any blind children that come to us. Last week, I inquired there about how we might help you increase your independence.”

“It’s time for me to fly the nest, is it?”

“I meant it when I said that room was yours as long as you wanted it,” Maggie said, unamused. “But we both know you were not meant to be a schoolmaster, Matthew.”

“Many things in this world were not meant to be thus, Sister. And yet they are.”

“Do you wish to continue wallowing in your self-pity or would you like to hear what they told me?”

Matthew smiled a little at that and tilted his head toward her. “Pray continue.”

“They told me that the New York Public Library has a collection books for the blind within it.”

“A library for the blind? That sounds like a joke.”

“The books are printed in an alphabet called Braille,” Maggie said. “It is a system of raised dots one reads with one’s fingertips. I visited the collection, Matthew. It’s quite impressive. I confess that if I had known about this I would have contacted them much sooner.”

“A tactile alphabet?” Matthew asked, his heartbeat beginning to quicken. “And there are books translated into it?”

“Many books, Matthew. Hundreds, from the look of it. It is quite a clever system. I am told that a skilled reader can read quickly as you or I would with our eyes,” she said.

Matthew was so stunned he did not even tease Maggie for her mistake. “I should like to learn that very much,” he said softly.

“I thought as much,” Maggie said. “I have arranged for a tutor to come on the first Friday after the New Year. Do you think you can wait ten more days?”

“I suppose I shall have to,” Matthew said, though he was not entirely sure that he could. The idea of reading again was almost too much pleasure to contemplate.

“I do have something for you in the meantime,” Maggie said, opening her desk. “Hold out your hand, please, and I will give it to you.”

She placed a thick, heavy piece of cardstock in his hand. “This is your Rosetta Stone,” she said. He ran his fingers over it to discover it was embossed all over with pinpoints and—English letters, he realized, large enough for him to trace with a fingertip. It was an alphabet key.

“This is the Braille code?” he asked stupidly. His heart was beating so hard he could hear it in his ears.

“Yes, Matthew,” Maggie said, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

“I do not think I shall sleep until I master it,” Matthew admitted, unable to keep his own smile from breaking across his face.

“You do not sleep anyway,” Maggie said kindly. “But your nighttime roaming has caused the children to believe we have a ghost, so perhaps you can occupy yourself with this, instead.”

* * *

Seven days later, the year 1919 began and three days after that, so did Matthew’s education. As humbling as it was to be learning his letters again at the age of 22, he scarcely minded. He had already memorized the alphabet by the time his tutor arrived, and he was putting together short words by himself by the end of his first lesson.

His tutor, Mrs. Mahoney, was a kind but stern Barbadian woman who came three times a week and spoke with a marvelous Irish-Caribbean lilt that he could listen to for hours. She was quick to rap his knuckles when she caught him guessing a word instead of reading it, or when he confused his punctuation, or fell back on reading with just one finger, or any other of the myriad errors he was discovering were possible in the pedagogy of Braille. But she was equally quick to praise his sharp mind and his determination, and always left him with a children’s primer to practice with until her next visit. He was so hungry for words that he did not care that he was readingabout talking dogs and cats—so long as he could read.

He proved to be a fast learner—the new sensitivity of his fingertips made discerning the dots quite easy, though training his mind to translate the code into letters and then into words took a fair amount longer. He did not mind the work, however. It was one of the few occupations that demanded enough of his attention to dim the incessant cinema of blood and bullets playing against the blank screen of his damaged eyes, and he was more than happy for the distraction.

He sat up in bed late into the night, his primer open on his lap, reading sentences over and over again until simple, common words started to become familiar. When he realized that he could read the word “the” without thinking about it, without taking it letter by letter and spelling it out in his mind first, a tiny burst of lightness exploded in his heart. Then he immediately determined to achieve the same fluency with “and.”

It really was strange to want things again.

* * *

Franklin had spent January visiting his grandparents in Boston, but the next time he called, Matthew had tentatively asked whether he would mind taking him to the library so he could inspect the collection himself. “Mind? Devil, I shall take you anytime you want,” Franklin said ebulliently. “Come, get your coat while I hail us a cab. We’ll go right now.”

Now, as they walked up the stairs to the library door, Matthew paused for a minute and turned back toward the street. All around him swirled automobiles and their fumes and horses and their shit and carriages and pigeons and rats and mothballs and wet wool and sweaty hatbands and the crunch of boots on February snow and rotting garbage and raw sewage, because there was always sewage, and pipe smoke and cigar smoke and coal smoke and wood smoke and the distant salt tang of the sea.

In truth, though, he could no longer distinguish what he knew by scent and what he knew by sound anymore—or even touch, as he discovered that he could perceive changes in air currents as they moved around objects and thus discern their shapes by the voids they created. For example, the twin stone lions that rose high above either side of the library stairs were clear in his mind. He did not even have to turn his head toward them.

He still did not understand how his new perceptions worked, but he was getting better at integrating them more quickly and interpreting them more fluently, linking these new sensations to what he knew by sight before. It was not so different from how he was learning Braille, he thought.

Suddenly he recalled that some virtuous fool had named the lions Patience and Fortitude, and he sighed. Was the whole world conspiring against him?

“What are you doing?” Franklin asked, concerned.

“Just taking in the view,” Matthew said.

“What do you mean by that?” Franklin asked. Blessedly, there was no mockery in his friend’s voice. He was genuinely curious.  

“It’s hard to explain,” Matthew said, partly because he had no idea how to describe his heightened perceptions, and partly because he feared Franklin would think him mad if he even tried. “I am learning how to piece together a new impression of the world without using my eyes. For example, once we get to the top stair, I shall probably be able to divine the approximate location of the door by listening as other people enter and leave. And I know you are standing next to me, even though I am not touching you, because you are blocking the breeze, and because there is a bit of warmth coming off you.”

“Would you be able to tell the difference between me and another person if I did not speak?”

“I know it’s you because I recognize your awful cologne,” Matthew said wickedly, taking his arm again. “Now come. I am starved for something to read besides Mother Goose.”

A librarian directed them to a table in a private corner of the reading room to wait while Matthew’s books were gathered. It was astonishing how many titles they had—at least a thousand, perhaps more, Matthew thought. He was greedy for them all, and the librarian was kind enough to bring him everything he requested.

He had no intention of borrowing them all—he still read so slowly that it would surely take him the better part of an hour to finish a single page—but he still wanted to touch and smell them, and God, even to kiss them, to know that they were real and that they were there whenever he wanted them.

He could not read Franklin’s face anymore, but he sensed that he was grinning ear to ear; there was a happy skip in his heart as he sat across the table, chin resting in one hand, watching Matthew open each book at random and skim the page with his fingers.

“Read me something,” Franklin said, idly running his fingers across a page of a book Matthew had already inspected and set aside to be sent back to the stacks. “I want to see how it is done.”

Matthew blushed. “It would be torture for you, I’m sure. Eleanor probably reads faster than I do right now.”

“I do not begin law school until September, Matthew. I have nothing but time. One sentence, please?”

“Very well.” Matthew said. He flipped open the next book—Henry James’ _Portrait of a Lady_ —and positioned his hands on the page.

“Liv-ing…as he…now…liv-lived…was…like…read-reading…a good…book…in a…poor…trans-ah-transla-transation…a mea-meag-oh, meager…enter-entertain-entertainment…for a…young…man…who…felt …that…he…might…have been…an…exce-hmm-excellent…lin-lingu?-linguist.”

_Living as he now lived was like reading a good book in a poor translation—a meager entertainment for a young man who felt that he might have been an excellent linguist._

Franklin sighed, and Matthew could swear he could hear the smile fade from his face. He had started and stopped so many times it must have sounded nonsensical to him. But all Franklin said was, “James always did have a grim side, didn’t he.”

Matthew closed the book and pushed it aside. “So do I, old friend.” 

Franklin laughed softly at that and scanned the other books on the table. He selected one and pushed it toward Matthew. “Perhaps Emily Dickinson will suit better.”

“If James has a grim side, then Miss Dickinson is the very harbinger of doom, Foggy,” Matthew said. Still, Franklin was right in one respect: The lines were very short, and he did, after all, read very slowly. Miss Dickinson’s poems would do nicely.

Back outside, book tucked safely into Matthew’s canvas bag, the sun was out and the chill was not too bad, so they decided to walk the mile back to St. Agnes’.

It was almost like old times, he thought, when they would roam the city in their free hours, looking for entertainment or mischief—sometimes both. It gave him a warm feeling to remember it, and to feel some shade of it again.

Franklin stopped in the middle of a block and turned them both toward a storefront—a bar, from the sharp scent of it. “Fancy a drink before it’s outlawed?” he asked.

Matthew tilted his head a little and tried to count the heartbeats within. He had no appetite for crowds of men anymore—particularly boisterous, careless ones given to shouting or slapping his back or grabbing his arm without warning. In the chronic darkness that surrounded him, it was not as easy to distinguish fellowship from fighting. He would miss the soothing bite of a sip of rye at night when his nightmares woke him, once the Prohibition became law, but he would not miss that.

But it was three in the afternoon, and he could only detect six or seven souls inside. “All right,” he said.

The taps of his cane seemed louder here than they had in the library, and every head in the bar swiveled to discover the source of the sound. Matthew bit his lip, choked up a little further on his walking stick and simply carried it a little in front of him. He had never tried to walk without it in an unfamiliar space before, but the mostly-empty bar seemed like it could be manageable, and Franklin was not ashamed to go about with Matthew’s hand on his arm.

If Franklin noticed their stares, he did not respond to them. He simply squared his shoulders and guided Matthew to the bar.

“Can we sit somewhere else?” Matthew asked softly. “I should—prefer my back to a wall as we were in the library, if that is all right.”

“Of course,” Franklin said. His breath hitched a little at the request and Matthew felt his own face go hot in embarrassment. He took Matthew’s arm and found them a table in the back corner of the bar, saying, “It was too drafty that close to the door, anyway.”

“You don’t need to do that, Foggy,” Matthew said.

“Do what?”

“Try to make things better.”

“How a man as intelligent as you can be such a fool sometimes, I will never understand,” Franklin said, guiding his hand to the furthermost chair against the wall. “And I’m not talking about moving seats. Ale or whiskey?”

Matthew huffed in exasperation and took his seat. “Ale.”

While Franklin ordered their drinks, Matthew trained his attention on the other patrons. Most were drinking alone, but there was a small group of three up by the door, _New York Times_ reporters from the sound of their conversation. One was complaining that his usual source on the police force had clammed up when he tried to tease out more information than was being publicly released about a dead hooker found washed up near the East Side Docks, while another was speculating that it might be because some highfalutin swell was implicated and the third murmured about a Tammany Hall connection. They spoke softly enough, but once Matthew focused on their voices, he could hear them perfectly.

 “Dark or light?” Franklin asked, interrupting his eavesdropping. He tried and failed to smother a yawn. “They had both.”

“Dark, please,” Matthew said, accepting the glass Franklin pushed into his hands. “Bad night?”

Franklin waved away Matthew’s observation with his hand, forgetting for a moment that it had gone unseen. “The trip home from Boston was monstrous. You know train travel always makes me ill.”

His heart fluttered as he spoke, however, and Matthew realized with a shock that Franklin was lying. It was true that he always went a bit green on a train, but that was not the reason he hadn’t slept. He suddenly recalled the question Franklin had asked him in his father’s library at Christmas— _They go away eventually, don’t they?_ Franklin had only been home for three months, Matthew remembered. Perhaps his friend simply not yet learned how to manage his dreams yet.

“A splash of cold water on your face and a few sips of whiskey,” Matthew said delicately. “That usually does the trick for me when I wake in the night.”

“It will be a miracle if our whole generation does not go mad,” Franklin said.

“Especially once our best remedy is outlawed,” Matthew said wryly, lifting his glass and taking a sip. “I do not think Jesus and lemonade will be equal to the task.”

Franklin laughed. “Well, Father has been stockpiling liquor in our cellar since the first rumblings of this nonsense, so we should at least be all right on that count.”

“Leave it to Edward to plan for all contingencies,” Matthew said, grinning. “Can’t finish a meal properly without brandy, can he?”

“That would be uncivilized, Matthew,” Franklin said, mocking his father’s booming, patrician voice. “Alcohol is what separates us from the animals, after all.”

“And cigars, and butchery, and fine hats, and music, and good books, and—” Matthew said, laughing. What separated man from beast, according to the gospel of Edward Nelson, was whatever Edward Nelson liked.

“Speaking of books, it was good to see you with one in your hands again today,” Franklin said. “If I didn’t know better, I would venture to say you seem marginally happy.”

“It is an unfamiliar sensation,” Matthew admitted shyly. “I did not expect I would feel it again.”

“I did,” Franklin said.

“You always were too optimistic for your own good,” Matthew said, peeling the cardboard coaster from the bottom of his glass and lobbing it toward where he thought he detected Franklin’s shoulder. He only missed by a few inches.

“Perhaps,” Franklin said, lightly touching his glass to Matthew’s. “But I was still right.”

* * *

Winter began to give way to a cool but relatively dry spring, and with better weather came more opportunities for Matthew to learn his way around the neighborhood. He still preferred using his walking stick outside to help him map the nuances of the terrain, but the more he mastered his enhanced perceptions, the more vivid and distinct each block became. It was rather like strolling by lamplight on a night with a bright moon, he reckoned—some spots were more clearly illuminated than others, but none of it was completely blank to him. He ventured further and further every day, determined to chart out as much of Hell’s Kitchen as he possibly could.

Matthew’s reading continued to improve rapidly as well, so much so that by the end of March, Mrs. Mahoney concluded that she had taught him all she could, and that all he needed now was practice. She left him for the last time with a warm embrace and a metal stencil and stylus that he could use to write Braille with.

That night, he and Sister Maggie sat together in her office as he painstakingly punched out the titles on his phonograph records, which Maggie then cut out and glued to each sleeve.

“It’s a clever device,” she said, admiring it while the glue dried. “I shall purchase one of my own. If you ever leave us, I should like to be able to write you a letter every now and again.”

“Oh, Mags, I’ll never leave,” Matthew said fondly. “You’d miss me too much.”

“Are you truly happy here, Matthew?” she asked.

“Happier than I thought I would ever be a year ago,” Matthew said.

“Has it been that long since your injury?”

“A year come Thursday.”

“Oh.”

“You need not plan a party.”

“Matthew.”

 “It is all right, Sister,” Matthew said, smiling, mostly genuinely. “I am—remarkably well, under the circumstances. I do not think it would have been possible without your assistance these last eight months.”

“The hardest portion of the battle was yours,” Maggie said.

Matthew tilted his head in silent agreement, then stood and gathered his records up. “All the same,” he said. “Thank you.”

* * *

Thursday morning, he set out after breakfast for Castle’s apartment, for Castle had a surprise for him today.

“Do I at least get to know where we’re going?” Matthew asked, as Castle took them further south into Hell’s Kitchen.

“You’ll see soon enough,” Castle said. “It’s not far.”

He figured it out a block before they arrived. Sweat and leather and chalk and canvas and blood—there was only one place it could be.

His father had trained at Fogwell’s for as long as Matthew could remember. Matthew had tagged along with him most Saturday mornings, and though Fogwell himself was long retired by then, he’d taken a shine to young Matthew and taught him a few punches on the heavy bag while Jack was too busy sparring to notice. After Jack died, Matthew would sometimes run away from St. Agnes to visit for an hour or so. Fogwell had taken pity on him, then, letting him spar if he could spare the time. The lessons had served him well on the schoolyard—especially against the rich boys at Franklin’s school who didn’t think he belonged—and in France, too.

Once inside, the memories slammed into him like a pissed-off bull. His father, sweat-slick and bloody, dancing and dodging in the ring, wearing the other guy down and gradually working him into a corner so slowly his opponent didn’t notice, until he was well and truly trapped. That’s when Jack would let loose his wrath, beating and beating until the referee had to pull him off. It had terrified Matthew to see his father like that then—at seven, eight, nine, he couldn’t conceive of anything that could make him that angry. He could now.

“Little Matty Murdock, as I live and breathe!” Fogwell shouted. Age had reduced his voice to a hoarse rasp and his step to a slow shuffle, but his sudden grip on Matthew’s arms were as strong as ever. “Not so little now anymore.”

“No sir,” Matthew said.

“It’s Tommy, please, Matty,” Fogwell said, taking his hand and shaking it exuberantly.

“Tommy,” Matthew said. “How are you faring these days? The gym sounds busy.”

“Business is booming. We don’t want for fighters now that the war’s done,” Fogwell said. “Myself? I’m a little the worse for wear,” he added with a wry laugh.

“Aren’t we all.”

“Don’t you worry, my boy. We’ll get you back in fighting shape in no time.”

“Excuse me?”

“Go on,” Castle said, and Matthew could hear the smile in his voice. “I’ll wait for you here.”

Fogwell took Matthew’s arm and led him toward the heavy bag in the far corner, which was currently being beaten halfway into oblivion by a small, slight man. The sound of Matthew’s cane on the floor seemed to catch his attention however, and he stopped as they drew near.

“I want you to introduce you to someone,” Fogwell said, guiding his hand toward the other man’s. “Matty, this is my old friend Walter. Walter, be civilized for a moment, will you?”

“Only my friends call me Walter,” the man said irritably, shaking Matthew’s hand once before letting go and giving the heavy bag one final slap. He was old, Matthew realized—even older than Fogwell, perhaps—but his hands seemed as strong as his father’s had in his prime. “You can call me Stick.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Braille has existed since the middle of the 19th century, but in an age without the internet, I'm assuming that many people, even educated people, would have no idea it existed unless they knew someone who was blind themselves. 
> 
> OK, back to work soon, so posting may slow down a bit (though I may be able to squeak one more chapter in by Sunday). Thank you for your continued encouragement and comments! 
> 
> Matthew's next steps are beginning to solidify in my mind, but as usual, the suggestion box is open.


	6. Spring 1919: The Blind Boxer of Bensonhurst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Matthew enters his second year of blindness, he's finally figuring out how to live again. But when life knocks his feet out from under him again, he's got a big decision to make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still moving briskly forward in this chapter as we move more pieces into place for Matthew--think of it as the training montage in a movie. :) 
> 
> Thanks to Pogopop for the line “stupid, stubborn pride.” It was so perfect I had to have someone say that to him. :) 
> 
> Trigger warnings for a lot of period-appropriate explicit and internalized ableism and a depiction of 1900’s sideshow culture, as well a disturbing moment of explicit violence with a sexual component during a war flashback.
> 
> And wait! Did I say in the end notes of a recent chapter that Prohibition is just around the corner? Lol, I was WRONG. Prohibition was ratified by the states in January 1919 but not enacted until 1920. So our boys have a little more time to booze it up before the taps run dry.
> 
> Not beta'd, because I like to fly by the seat of my pants like that--holler if you spot any inconsistencies or issues.

“Boxing?” Sister Claire asked incredulously, inspecting Matthew’s sore ribs.

Matthew let out a rueful laugh. “Ever heard of the Blind Boxer of Bensonhurst?”

Sister Claire snorted. “The guy at Coney Island? Challenged anyone who dared to make it three rounds in the ring with him?”

“That’s the one,” Matthew said, wincing as Sister Claire found a tender spot. “Turns out he’s the real McCoy.”

One of the happiest days of Matthew’s life had been a hot summer day when he was nine and his father took him to Coney Island for a treat. He could no longer recall the occasion, but his father had been unusually flush that day—it was the only time he could remember Jack buying him anything he wanted. Matthew had not questioned it, of course, just ran himself ragged on a diet of hot dogs and sugar, splashing in the water, skipping up the boardwalk, screaming himself sick on the roller coasters at Dreamland. It was the only time he could remember his father laughing.

Sunburnt and sleepy, they spent the afternoon touring the exhibits and taking in the shows, marveling at the dwarf village and the bearded woman and the armless man who could tie all manner of sailor’s knots with his feet and the premature babies snuffling softly in their glass boxes. To him as a child, it had seemed miraculous that such marvelous people existed; now that he understood for himself what those curious stares felt like, he could only think of it with regret for the cruelty of it all.

But it was there, in a ring halfway down the concourse, that the Blind Boxer of Bensonhurst plied his trade in short pants and a blindfold, offering fights for a quarter apiece and refunds for anyone who could beat him. It had taken some doing, but Matthew finally managed to persuade his father to take his turn. Even setting aside the blindness—which Jack did not believe was true—Jack was much taller and heavier than Stick. Afraid he’d kill the man, he’d pulled his punches, but instead of a refund he earned himself a shiner for his trouble that left him seeing double for a week. Jack was rueful but Matthew was delighted, and reminded him of it every chance he got.

Not that he had many chances after that. Three weeks later, his father was dead from a lucky hit to the temple in the ring. Matthew always wondered if his father would have seen the hit coming sooner if his eye hasn’t still been so swollen. 

The memory of that day blared fresh in Matthew’s mind as he realized who Stick was. “You wouldn’t remember, but you fought my father once,” he ventured. “He lost.”

“I remember Battlin’ Jack,” the man said gruffly, resuming his abuse of the heavy bag. “You better not be as soft as he was. Now get changed. We got work to do, kid.”

Matthew hesitated. “Mr. Fogwell, I am not sure what Mr. Castle told you, but I have no intention to train for a sideshow act,” he murmured.

Suddenly a shape rounded on him and a fist caught him hard in the ribs, sending Matthew sprawling on the floor.

“Not training you for a sideshow, kid,” Stick said, roughly toeing Matthew’s leg and waving Fogwell off. “Back off, Tommy. Lesson starts now. Get up.”

And he did. He’d hurled himself at the old man, striking wildly, instinctively, forgetting even the little technique and strategy that Fogwell had taught him as a boy. If he was using his perceptions, he did not notice or care. All he knew was that Stick’s sucker punch had scared him even more than it had hurt him, and Matthew was going to make him pay.

Stick hadn’t hit him back once, just blocked and dodged until Matthew wore himself out and found a wall to lean against while he caught his breath.

“Lesson one: That devil inside you works for you, not the other way around, understand? So you’ve gotta learn how to keep the little shit on his chain.”

“How do I do that?”

“That’s lesson two,” Stick had said, slapping his arm harder than was strictly necessary. “See you this time tomorrow.”

Matthew had groaned at the idea, for he was not used to moving like that anymore and knew he would regret it come morning, but he knew he’d be back all the same. Forget his cautious, caneless roaming about St. Agnes’ after dark—this undisciplined brawl had marked the first time in a year that he’d been truly free.

“Matthew, what were you thinking?” Sister Claire asked, turning her attention to his raw-knuckled hands.

“Believe it or not, it was Castle’s idea of a present.”

“I’d hate to see what you’d look like if you ever got on his bad side,” Sister Claire mused.  “Nothing’s broken, but you should go gentle for a few days.”

“I’ll try.”

She sighed and tapped his nose. “Wrap your hands, at least? You need yours more than most people.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Matthew grinned.

“See, that wasn’t so difficult.”

* * *

Stick was a hard master. Matthew had anticipated that, of course, given their first day, but he’d had no idea how demanding his training would be.

Stick did not fight like a blind man, and he did not allow Matthew to, either. He did not go easy and he did not go slow and he did not give Matthew many opportunities to make the same mistake twice. “The world don’t give people like us first chances, much less second ones, Matty,” Stick had lectured, getting in a cheap shot in on Matthew’s unprotected left side. “If you don’t like the choices you’re offered you gotta make your own.”

Stick certainly had. He’d been born blind and abandoned as a baby. The poorhouse he’d been raised in didn’t agree with him—no hot water, little heat, bad food and never enough of it, plentiful beatings—so he’d run away at 10, reckoning even the streets would be better. He’d been taken in by a gang, used as decoy for pickpockets before learning how to pick a few pockets of his own. That had landed him in jail at 16, where he’d learned to fight.

Three years later he was out with nowhere to go. He’d made his way to Coney Island, convinced someone to paint him a sign selling fights for a dime apiece, and made enough by the end of the first day to buy both a meal and a bed for the night. Eventually he had enough to rent a booth at a second-rate sideshow, and that’s when he began making real money. Not much, at first, but enough that he didn’t have to worry about paying for a roof over his head. Enough that he was able to buy a better sign and better clothes—enough that he became respectable enough to work at Dreamland. In the cooler months, when the park was closed, he took rooms in Manhattan instead and boxed as a warm-up act before big matches. Five years ago, he had enough saved up to stop fighting and start organizing fight nights of his own.

“Don’t you dare believe they exploited me, Matty,” he said, catching Matthew hard on the jaw and knocking him flat. “It was _me_ took _their_ money. And I won it with my fists, fair and square, same as anyone else here. Never forget that.”

* * *

As Matthew progressed from the heavy bag and the speed bag to sparring gloves, Matthew found himself drawing on his perceptions more and more to keep up. The thrill of the fight, he discovered, had a marvelous way of sharpening his senses. Whether Stick noticed or cared, he could not tell—he simply kept pushing and pushing him until he moved as assuredly in the ring as he did in his little attic room. 

The more confident he became in the ring, the more he began to realize how frightened he had become of the rest of the world, how heavy the millions of worries he carried with him had grown. What if he bumped into something? What if he tripped over something? What if he knocked something over? What if he was struck by an automobile? What if he got lost? What if he couldn’t find someone to help him? What if someone cheated him of his money? What if someone hurt him? What if they stared at him or laughed at him or pitied him? What if what if what if what if…? 

For while it was true that his new perceptions helped him enormously, made the world feel much less vast and uncertain and perplexing than it might have otherwise seemed in perfect darkness, he was coming to recognize that they would never replace the certainty he had lost. There were still plenty of days when there was too much to process at once—too many sounds, too many smells, too many vibrations to weave into a coherent understanding of the world—and even on his best days there would always be things he’d have to guess at. He knew he would not always guess right. He knew that.

With every punch, it seemed, the name of a new fear materialized, drove him to hit ever harder, as if he could beat the fears away one by one. He couldn't, of course, but it felt good to know that at least he could fight them back for a while, anyway.

It emboldened him. He began to test himself, making plans to meet Franklin in places he’d never been before so he would be forced to find them on his own, or taking the streetcar by himself to the library. Other evenings, he would meet Castle at Josie’s after his shift ended. He did not enjoy crowds any better than he did before, and he still preferred to keep his back to the wall when he could, but the noise and the press of the men around him no longer stoked the terror within him that it used to. He still preferred to use his walking stick to warn him of curbs and small obstacles, and to rely on in case things became too overwhelming, but mostly he carried it because he could not think of a satisfactory excuse _not to_ anymore.

For the first time in a year, he could remember what it felt like to live—really live, not just execute the necessary functions to keep his heart beating, to perform the necessary behaviors to maintain his access to food and shelter. He wanted things, he took pleasure in things, he looked forward to things. He delighted in his music and pored over his books and laughed with Franklin and enjoyed Castle’s easy, wordless touch during their Saturday afternoon visits. He loved teaching, he found—loved hearing the children’s minds open a little more each day, loved knowing that every day brought them closer to a better future than they might have otherwise expected. He had always wanted to help people—he thanked God every day that he still could.

And yes, he had even arrived at a kind of narrow détente with God—there were elements of creation, Matthew allowed, that were worth celebrating, even if He was a capricious ass about it.

He began going to the Nelsons’ for Sunday dinner, and began to repair his friendship with Candace, who was now more excited about the prospect of attending Vassar in the fall than of rekindling her romance with him. There was no further talk of Matthew attending Columbia or moving back home, but rather a surprisingly easy acceptance of the fact that his probationary separation from them was becoming a permanent one, that he was not one of them anymore, and likely never would be again. Yet they loved him no less for it, and he, though he had no idea he was still capable of feeling thus, found he loved them all the more for it. 

How impossible it had all seemed a year ago.

* * *

In May news came that the archdiocese purchased the building next door to St. Agnes’ and began to convert it into a school. When it was finished, every child at St. Agnes would be guaranteed a full education, and none would be required to work.

Sister Maggie had written to the archdiocese’s school superintendent about hiring Matthew on full-time, and the notion of a blind schoolteacher was curious enough that he came personally to observe one of his classes. Matthew pulled out all the stops, had the children reading Shakespeare and solving quadratic equations, sharing their essays on President Lincoln and demonstrating the complex machine they had built to pour water from pitcher into the glass.

“This teaches them how to make compound machines,” Matthew explained to Father Carlyle afterward, touching each component as he spoke. “This ball rolls down a ramp into this small bucket on the pulley, which drops down onto the edge of this teeter-totter here, the opposite end of which rises to push this lever up, which tilts the pitcher just enough to pour the water into this cup attached to another pulley, and once the glass is heavy enough, it sinks down atop this lever which rebalances the pitcher so it stops pouring out.” He rocked back on his heels and stood up. “It required my students to use not just their woodcrafting skills, but algebra, geometry, and a fair bit of ingenuity and patience as well. Even the girls are quite capable of it. I should think some of them have the makings of fine engineers.”

Father Carlyle barked out a disbelieving laugh at that, but spoke gently. “I am very impressed at how cleverly you have overcome your affliction, Mr. Murdock, and we are certainly grateful for how hard you have worked to educate the older children,” he said. He was an old man, and somewhat drunk, and reeked of muscle liniment. And sweat? His heart was fast, too—anxious, Matthew realized. He didn’t want to be having this conversation. “However, of course you must understand that we cannot employ you as a teacher in our school.”

Matthew could not speak at first. A flush both hot and cold seemed to perfuse through him, and suddenly he became very, very aware of the bruise on his jaw that Stick had given him the week before. Perhaps it had not faded as much as he thought. Perhaps it made him seem more helpless than he really was. Still, he forged ahead in the hopes of salvaging the situation.

“Have I not proven to you that I am capable? The results should speak for themselves.”

Father Carlyle gave a vague condescending hum— _how stupid you are that I must spell it out, boy_. “It is the parents, you understand. The school must have paying students to sustain it, and I fear that many families would have considerable reservations about having their child educated by a man such as yourself.”

“A man such as myself.” Matthew felt his hand curl into a fist and quickly covered it with his other, though he could hear the rage clear in his voice, and he expected Father Carlyle could, too.

I am sorry, Matthew, and I am sympathetic to your disappointment. But I do have a different opportunity to offer,” Father Carlyle said, shifting his weight uncomfortably. “Sister Margaret tells me you are quite a skilled piano player. Have you considered a career as a tuner? You would be well-suited to the occupation.”

“A piano tuner,” Matthew said.

“The archdiocese has arranged a number of such apprenticeships for the blinded boys in our care over the years. I should be happy to inquire after a place for you. You are not that much older than some of the boys we place—we should be able to find something that suits nicely.”

Matthew bit back his lip, nearly breaking the skin. His heart pounded like thunder in his ears. “Thank you, Father,” he said, and his voice sounded faint and distant beyond his heartbeat. “I will…consider the offer.”

But once Father Carlyle was safely packed off to his next appointment, Matthew stole away up to the attic and punched the wall as hard as dared, until his knuckles began to bleed and frustrated tears burned in his eyes.

_Don’t you dare believe they exploited me, Matty._

He was beginning to see Stick’s point.

* * *

“Piano tuning is a very respectable profession, Matthew,” Father Lantom said with infuriating equanimity. “A far sight better than the broom shop, I should say. It would provide you a secure living.”

Matthew had always liked Lantom’s study, the scent of leather-bound books and pipe tobacco and incense and ink blending into a calming perfume that evoked studiousness and rational thought. But at the moment it only seemed to enrage him further, for it represented a life that it seemed increasingly unlikely he would be allowed to lead. More than anything, he wanted to tear it all apart and set it afire.

“I know it is respectable, Father,” he said through gritted teeth. “I know it is probably the best that someone in my condition should expect, especially considering where I came from. But it is—”

“Do not say it is beneath you, Matthew. No honest labor is beneath anyone.”

“Sister Margaret would disagree.”

“Sister Margaret is a snob,” Father Lantom said crisply. “Despite her sharp edges, she has always been partial to you, and her desire to protect you from the world has kept you from taking your place in it. Perhaps God is telling you that you are ready.”

“To become a piano tuner.”

“Very well, Matthew, what would you prefer?” Father Lantom asked mildly. “Would you prefer to box on the boardwalk?”

“How do you—?”

“I’ve known Tommy Fogwell for almost 30 years, Matthew.”

“I am a teacher,” Matthew said firmly, though his voice had grown rough. “I am getting to be a rather good one, too.”

“Would you like to pursue a teaching certification?”

“For a job no one will hire me for?”

“The Archdiocese is not the only employer of teachers, Matthew,” Lantom said. “I’m sure a word from Mr. Nelson could open a few doors for you.”

“I do not want their charity, Father.”

“You prefer ours?” Lantom said, still with that infuriatingly matter-of-fact mildness. “We will not put you out on the street, son—you know that. But once the school is built I do not think you will find much satisfaction in the remaining work available to you around here, unless you discover a hidden calling to sweeping floors.”

Matthew swallowed. “That was a cruel thing to say,” he said hoarsely.

Father Lantom sighed but did not disagree. “Do I recall correctly that your wartime deferral to law school is valid until June?”

“And do you really believe a blind lawyer has any better chance in this world than a blind teacher, Father?”

“Matthew. Enough,” Lantom sighed. He finished his tea and set the cup heavily on its saucer. “I will not continue speaking in circles about this. It is true that there is no guarantee that your pursuit of the law will be successful, but nor is there any guarantee that it will fail, and you will not know until you try,” The priest reached over and clasped his hand over Matthew’s shoulder. “It is fear, not reason, that is keeping you from your path, and I cannot counsel away your fear, Matthew. You asked for my advice, so here it is: Be brave and trust in God. That is all I can ever say.”

* * *

“He’s not wrong, Red,” Castle said thoughtfully. They had gone back to his apartment after just one drink at Josie’s because his leg was hurting, and right now they were sitting side-by-side on the bed while a rubber bag filled with chipped ice rested across Castle’s shin. “Coulda been nicer about it, though, I guess.”

“I don’t know what to do, Francis,” Matthew said.

“I know you don’t want to sweep floors at church,” Castle said. “And it don’t sound like you want to tune pianos, either.”

“It might not be so bad. I might get used to it.”

“You know, I don’t understand you at all sometimes,” Castle said. “You got the Nelsons on your side. You never had to settle for any of this to begin with. Why do you?”

“I want to make my own way.”

“Oh yeah?” Castle asked irritably, taking a long pull from a bottle of rum he’d liberated from the bar’s stores. “When do you plan on getting started?”

“Stop,” Matthew said softly, leaning petulantly into Frank’s side and drawing his knees up to his chest. “You do not have to shame me further.”

“Ain’t trying’ to shame you, Red. Just wish you’d see reason.”

“I cannot go back to that world,” Matthew said vehemently. “You do not understand the kind of men that go there. It was bad enough as a poor orphan, and a Catholic to boot. Now I would be as much a curiosity there as I would be on Coney Island.”

“Yeah? So prove ‘em wrong.”

“It is not that easy, Francis,” Matthew sighed.

“I know it ain’t,” Castle said. “When did that ever stop you? You’re smarter than anyone I ever met, Red. You know what you’re worth. The Nelsons know what you’re worth. I sure as hell know what you’re worth. Don’t let those old society biddies be the ones who tell you that you can’t do it.”

“What if Columbia doesn’t let me come back?” His voice sounded so small and plaintive in his own ears that he could barely stand it. How would he read his books or write his assignments or take his exams? He was still not so skilled at Braille that he could hope to keep up—even if the materials were available in Braille in the first place. He would have to ask the Nelsons to hire him a secretary, too. It would be too much to ask. It was all too much to ask. He did not deserve it. 

He had lost his mind in the trenches and torn off a German boy’s ear with his fingers when his knife proved too dull. He had cradled it in his hand all night like a baby bird, wondering at the pale skin and delicate whorls and the brightness of the stiff white gristle revealed by the wound. The thrill of it had heated him low in his belly and made him hard—harder than he’d been in months, and when he’d slipped into the stinking latrine to relieve himself of it he’d had to bite down hard on his filthy hand till it bled to keep from shouting, the pleasure of it was so strong.

It did not matter that dawn had revealed his madness to him, that he had thrown the ear away as soon as mind settled, that he’d only done it once while many of his compatriots had done it over and over again. He had crossed the line and no quibbling over the degree could save him. The gas should have killed him. He did not deserve his old dreams and Columbia would know. The Nelsons would know. Everyone would know.

Here, finally, his last fear left to be named.

“Then study your friend’s books and take the bar exam anyway. You always told me you wanted to help people—so help them, for Christ’s sake.” Castle threaded his arm behind Matthew’s shoulders and drew him close, tilting his cheek so it rested against the top of Matthew’s head. It was the closest thing to intimacy he had ever shown.

“Do you know what I would give for a chance—even just a chance—to get my old life back, Red? Watching you throw it all away because of your stupid, stubborn pride—“

And yet, and yet, and yet. 

Matthew reached up and clasped Castle’s hand resting on his shoulder. He said a silent prayer and took a deep breath. “All right,” he said. “All right. I’ll try.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really don't much care for sideshows where the whole act is a disabled person being disabled. (Fire swallowing and whatnot? Sure!) That said, sideshows were one of just a handful of occupations available to people with disabilities at the turn of the century, and while many acts exploited these individuals, it's not unreasonable to expect that someone like Stick, who has a thick skin and an entrepreneurial streak, couldn't make a good living at it and even take pride in what he did. To that end, I've tried to respect the complexity of the choices people with disabilities had to make at the time without being overly rosy or overly exploitative myself. If I've misstepped, I apologize and want to hear from you! You can PM me on Tumblr if you don't want to put your thoughts in the comments here. 
> 
> Piano tuning has long been a profession with a robust number of blind practitioners, even today! It's actually a pretty cool job that requires a ton of skill and just because Matthew thinks it's beneath him doesn't mean *I* think so (or that *you* should think so). Come to think of it, a piano tuner with Matt's super senses would probably kick ass at his job, so one of y'all should go write that one. :) 
> 
> Now that I'm back at work, I'm not sure when the next chapter will go up (and I may actually go back and edit this one more first) but in the meantime your comments are giving me life! 
> 
> As usual, the suggestion box is open. xoxo


	7. Summer 1919: Greetings and Farewells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Matthew prepares to attend law school, he must say goodbye to some friends and say hello to new ones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a bit long as we're covering a fair amount of emotional territory and tying some storylines up. Thank you so much for reading so far! xoxo

“Congratulations, counselor,” Franklin said, knocking his whiskey glass against Matthew’s. “You’ve just won your first case.”

Matthew laughed and tilted his head toward Franklin in agreement. It had taken some doing, but Matthew had managed to persuade the law school’s admissions board to accept him, so long as he hired his own secretary and sought no other accommodation than to take exams in a private room under the supervision of a proctor.

“But how will we know he is not cheating on his other assignments?” one of the old men—a Mr. Dodge, he thought—muttered.

“The same way you know none of the other men are,” Matthew said, forcing his voice to remain even and reasonable.

“This is not elementary school, Mr. Murdock. We do not supervise every student’s work.”

“Then why would you feel the need to supervise mine?” Matthew asked mildly. “My blindness does not prevent me from understanding the Honor Code. Shall I recite the pledge for you? I memorized it when I was an undergraduate.”

“A woman, Mr. Murdock!” Dodge cried, almost nonsensically. “Your secretary must be a woman. That way we should be assured that the work is yours and not hers.”

Matthew swallowed back a laugh, for if he had learned nothing else from teaching the older children at St. Agnes’, it was that the girls were at least as clever as the boys, perhaps even more so. Nor did he wish to point out that that the New York State Bar had already admitted women—which he knew because Candace had gone and joined the National Woman’s Party and now spoke of little else but women’s equality.

But at least it would be more pleasant to listen to a woman read to him than a man, so he arranged his face into an appropriate mask of gratitude and agreed.

And that was that: He was admitted. Franklin leapt to his feet and whooped when he emerged from the meeting room with a smile that turned into a full laugh when Franklin swept him up into a dance hold and twirled him around the hall for joy.

“Franklin, please don’t compromise my good standing already,” he gasped, carefully disengaging himself from Franklin’s grasp and straightening his jacket. The old men of the admissions board were beginning to totter out of the meeting room by then, and none seemed terribly amused by such antics, but Franklin was beyond caring.

“Oh, just wait till those old biddies see everything you can do,” Franklin said, capturing Matthew’s hand and tucking it into the curve of his elbow. “They’ll be ashamed they ever second-guessed you.”

“Well, that puts no pressure on me at all, Franklin,” Matthew said wryly as they stepped outside. “Thank you.”

Franklin laughed. “Like you were ever going to take things easy otherwise,” he said.

Outside, the June sun was hot on his face and he smiled. Before him, he knew, stood St. Paul’s, where he sometimes liked to spend a few quiet minutes between classes even if it was Episcopalian. To his left yawned the broad expanse of the central quadrangle, where he and Franklin would join some of the other boys in pickup football games on fine afternoons when it was too lovely outside to study. It was summer now, and quiet, but in September it would come alive again, and finally, he thought, so might he.

“Come on,” Franklin said, pulling him forward. “I want to buy you a drink.”

* * *

Matthew insisted upon packing up his room at St. Agnes’ by himself. There wasn’t much to pack, after all—a valise for his clothes and shaving kit and a large box for the Braille edition of the gospels that Sister Maggie and Father Lantom had bought for him. It had cost a small fortune, he knew, for it was a dozen volumes in all, and he knew that they knew he would feel so guilty about the cost that he would feel obliged to read them all the way through, no matter now strained his relationship with God had become.

It was very deviously done and he could not help admiring them for it.  

On his third and final trip down the narrow stairs, he carried the six leather-bound books that Franklin had brought him back in December, but instead of taking them to the lobby where his other things waited, he turned down the narrow hallway toward the infirmary.

“Sister Claire?” he called softly, toeing the door open with his foot. He could hear her heart beating in the far corner where he knew her desk was. “Are you in here?”

“Yes, Matthew,” she said, hurrying over. “What’s this?”

“A gift,” he said, holding the stack out toward her. “Since you seem to be enjoying them.”

“Oh, Matthew. I can’t accept these,” she said. “It’s too much.”

“Of course it isn’t,” Matthew said, carrying the books past her and setting them on the table he knew stood just inside the door. “I am deeply grateful to you, Sister,” he said. “I do not think I would be alive today were it not for your skills. Thank you.”

“No thanks needed,” Sister Claire said. She reached up and touched his cheek gently. “You’ve got a long, full life ahead of you, Matthew. I expect you to make something of it.”

Matthew smiled. “You can be sure of it.”

“Then that is all the thanks I require.” Sister Claire patted his cheek then withdrew her hand, quickly touching her fingers to her lips before smoothing her apron again. “Now, go on with you,” she said with a small laugh he could tell was not entirely genuine. “Get out of here before we decide to keep you after all.”  

* * *

“Proud of you, Red, you know that?” Castle said, playfully scrubbing the back of Matthew’s head. It had been five weeks since Matthew moved away from St. Agnes’ and in two more he would begin law school, and he had not stopped marveling at how impossible either of those things had seemed even just a few months ago.

Even though Matthew still returned to Hell’s Kitchen every Saturday as always, Castle had become more demonstrative since he moved away, more inclined to touch and kiss, though only behind closed curtains at home where it was safe. It had startled Matthew the first time he did it, but he hadn’t minded—it had been nearly two years since he and Candace had held hands and traded kisses in private corners of the Nelsons’ house, and he’d come to realize that he’d missed those sweet gestures of affection as much as sex.

Because they’d started doing that, too—advancing from hands to more intimate pleasures—and Matthew had embraced it just as eagerly. He did not allow himself to consider the wrongness of it, of allowing another man to fill him up in that way, of enjoying it as much as he did—after seven months of war, he no longer concerned himself overmuch with God’s judgment. If He couldn’t be bothered to stop the slaughter in France, there was no chance He cared a whit about a spot or two of buggery in Hell’s Kitchen.

“It wasn’t a sure thing,” Matthew admitted. “I’ve gone over it many times in my head. It was very close, I think.”

“I knew you’d win ‘em over in the end,” Castle said. “You’re a persuasive little fuck.”

“Oh, am I?” Matthew said with a laugh, grabbing at Castle’s shirt and pulling him close. “What else can I persuade you to do?”

Later, spent and happy, they lay together in Castle’s bed in a careless tangle of sheets and limbs, the August heat pressing heavy against their skin. It had been a year since Castle had carried him to that infirmary dying of pneumonia, a year since he had last lived here. Now he lived in a fine five-room apartment on Broadway—with its own private bath!—just a few blocks from the Nelsons’ house, but this place would always be home, he thought.

It was not just Matthew who had grown strong and hale over the past year. Castle had grown stronger too—much stronger—though he still limped a little when he was tired. And for all the cuts and bruises he got from his prizefighting and the aches and pains from hauling kegs at Josie’s, Castle’s muscles had ballooned from the exercise. Matthew liked to trace the lines of them beneath his skin, liked noticing how they had grown and changed over the past year.

He liked to trace the lines of Castle’s face, too. He had no idea what the man looked like—he was little more than a vaguely familiar shape moving through space, with dark brown hair and dark brown eyes, according to Sister Maggie. It was his voice and his step and his touch that Matthew knew best—and his smell, the hot, bloody copper of him, sweat and leather and alcohol and muscle liniment all mixed up into something that was simply Francis.

And his heartbeat, of course, sometimes crackling with panic in the night, but mostly just booming steadily through the grief Matthew did not think would ever leave him. He’d come to terms with losing his wife—women died, after all—but not his children. Francis Jr. would have been six this year, and Elisabetta—Lisa, they’d called her, their eldest—would have been twelve. Matthew knew it was she, his clever, funny daughter, that Castle missed the most.

There had been two more in between who had not survived their first weeks, Nicholas and Giovanna, and after Francis was weaned, Maria had told Castle that she would give him no more, for she could not bear losing another. It had not been a hard decision at the time, Castle admitted. He could not have borne it either.

What he wouldn’t give for a living child now, though, Matthew knew.

But there was a different sadness in his heartbeat this time. A hesitation, a little catch in his breath that meant something was bothering him, despite his relaxed, merry mood.

“What are you thinking about?” Matthew asked, placing his hand lightly on Castle’s chest. Castle’s voice was deep and rough and he liked to feel the rumble of it against the hard bone and sinew of his chest.

“Prohibition,” Castle said. “Gonna have to find another job come January.”

“I will speak to Mr. Nelson about finding a place for you at his plant,” Matthew said.

“Seen enough blood for ten lifetimes,” Castle said. “No, I’m thinking about the railroad. Shovel coal on a train, maybe. It’s a good government job, fair wages, decent hours. Get to see the country, too.”

A cold heat flushed through Matthew’s chest. “You’re leaving?” he asked stupidly.

“What do you think you’re doing, Red?” Castle asked, his voice gruff. “Moving uptown, going to school? You won’t have time to come back to Hell’s Kitchen anymore.”

“I should be the one to decide that, don’t you think?” Matthew said. “I still plan to come back at the weekends to train with Stick.”

“Ain’t askin’ you to come back to me, Red,” Castle said gently. “You know we can’t keep going on like we do forever. Decided it was as good a time as any to make a clean break. Lease is up next week, anyway.”

There was not much he could say to that. He had given no thought to his future with Castle, simply took every hour they had together as it was without question or doubt, a blessed respite from the busy war that still raged inside his head whenever he let his mind grow too still. He had always assumed Castle would end things when he found another woman to start another family with. He never thought it would end because of his own ambitions.

He curled away from Castle and scrubbed away a hot tear that bubbled from the corner of his eye. Castle sighed and drew him close despite the heat, kissing the top of his head. “You’ll be all right, Red,” he said into Matthew’s ear.

Matthew let himself lean back a little into Castle’s chest, feeling his heart beat against his back. This, he thought, is what he would miss the most, this configuration of peace, this inversion of the shape they took when Castle’s nightmares crashed down over him.

How would he face those Columbia snobs day in and day out without the promise of this at the end of the week? Even with Franklin by his side in college, they had doubted and disdained him. Now, with the addition of their pity, he would need more than ever to be around people who believed in him. He took Castle’s hands in his and kissed them both.

“This isn’t what I want,” Matthew said to the wall.

“We can’t—” Castle said, but then Matthew turned over to face him.

“We can as long as we both want to. And I do not think you want this any more than I do.”

“You got a new life ahead of you,” Castle said. “I don’t belong in that world.”

“Nor do I.”

“Yeah, you do,” Castle said, his voice a sharp bark that brooked no argument. “Might notta been born to it, but you’re better’n all of ‘em put together. Besides, it’s time I left this city behind, anyway. Too many bad memories.”

Matthew closed his eyes and let his forehead rest against Castle’s. “It is not fair.”

“When’d you start thinking life was fair?” Castle asked, not unkindly, and brushed his nose against Matthew’s.

Matthew managed half a smile at that, squeezed him a little tighter, too. “Where will you go?”

“Anywhere the rails take me, I expect,” Castle said. “Wouldn’t mind going somewhere the winters aren’t as bad, though.”

“Franklin has friends in Florida. They say it’s nothing but swampland and orange groves.”

“Never had an orange,” Castle said thoughtfully. “They gave us limes in the Army for scurvy though, remember? Didn’t care for them.”

Matthew laughed a little. “You must put sugar on them.”

“Didn’t give us sugar, did they.”

“No, though I remember being so hungry I didn’t much mind.”

“Hey, don’t forget that, yeah?” Castle said suddenly. “What it was like to be hungry. When you get your fancy office downtown one day, don’t ever forget that there’s people who still are.”

“I won’t,” Matthew promised. “I grew up hungry. One never forgets it.”

Castle kissed him then, long and hard. “You should go soon,” he said, brushing Matthew’s hair off his brow and kissing that, too. “I’ve got to get ready for work.”

“No,” Matthew said forcefully, grabbing Castle’s arm as he moved to get out of bed. “Stay. Just a few more minutes? Please?”

Castle didn’t argue, just rolled back toward him and pulled him close. Matthew kissed the curve where his neck met his shoulder and breathed in deeply the scent of him, the copper and the leather and the alcohol and the sweat of him.

“I shall miss you terribly, Francis,” he said softly.

“Me too, Red,” he said. “We got each other through it, you know? Never gonna forget that. I’d have lost my leg if it weren’t for you.”

“And I’d likely have lost my life if it weren’t for you.”

After everything he’d been through—after the cold and hunger of his childhood and the death of his grandmother and his father, after the loneliness of the orphanage and the sticky gore of the meatpacking plant, after the sneers and jeers of the rich boys at school, after the filth and death and madness of the trenches and the searing fire of the gas and the gut-churning stench of the hospital convoy and the dust and itch of the broom shop and the lung-searing pain of pneumonia and the long, nightmare-wracked nights at St. Agnes’—after all that, this was the hardest thing.

This: Saying goodbye to his Francis. Kissing him with a long embrace he could hardly bear to release himself from. Touching his face one last time, ghosting his fingertips across the heavy brow and broken nose, thumbing the curve of his lip as if to memorize it. Trying not to cry as he heard the door creaking open, Castle settling his hat on his head and pressing his cane into his hand. His low, rasping “See you around, Red,” as Matthew stepped through the door and onto the landing.

This: The cruel click of the latch as Castle shut the door between them forever.

* * *

Despite the heat and the humidity, he walked the full 53 blocks north to his new apartment on Broadway. He had never walked anywhere near this distance alone before, and it demanded all of his focus to stay oriented and keep count of block after block after block. In other words—it was exactly what he needed to force his panicking mind to settle down.

Castle was not wrong in one respect: He would not have much time to think about Hell’s Kitchen once school started. Even when he had his eyes, he’d had to spend nearly every waking hour studying to keep up in college. He was smart, yes—but there were so many books he had not read that all the rich boys had, so many things he did not know about the world that he needed to learn in order to understand them. Now, with none of his law books available in Braille, he would have to study through someone else’s eyes, and that meant everything would take even longer.

The heat and the exercise were exhausting, and by the time he reached 112th Street, he had worn his worries out and managed to convince himself that it would be all right—that he would be all right.

Franklin was home, he could tell as he reached the door, for he was in the sitting room speaking to someone. A woman—a young one—but not Candace.

 _Courting already, you rake?_ Matthew thought, though his own disappointment wrung any smile he might have managed from his face. He’d had quite enough of the matters of the heart today.

He cleared his throat as he opened the door.

“That must be Matthew!” Franklin said, leaping to his feet at the sound of the door and crossing the sitting room to meet him in the front hall. The woman stood as well, with a rustle of light cambric and the gentle click of a string of beads, but did not follow him. She wore no scent but smelled of powder and lavender soap. “We have a visitor.”

“I heard you speaking to someone as I came in,” Matthew said, hanging his hat and cane on the rack. “I shall leave you to it. I have been out in the heat for some time and need to freshen up, anyway.”

“Don’t be long,” Franklin said. “She’s here for you. She’s the sister of someone you fought with.”

“She is? Who?”

“Her name is Katherine Page,” Franklin said. “Her brother was your friend Kevin.”

The floor seemed to want to slip from beneath Matthew’s feet, and he placed a steadying hand against the wall. He had not thought it possible for this day to get worse. “What is she doing here?”

“Visiting you, apparently,” Franklin said, taking him by the shoulders and pushing him toward the bathroom. “Now go clean up. You’re as sweaty as a stevedore. I’ll entertain her in the meantime.”

As he quickly washed up with a sponge and changed into a clean shirt and suit, he tried not think about the last time he saw Kevin, so instead he made himself concentrate on the first. They had met on the train to Camp Upton, on Long Island, where they would train before embarking for France. Kevin was skinny and small with a boyish thatch of dark blond hair and spots on his face and there was no chance in hell he was 21.

In fact, he was just 16. He’d hopped a freight train that ran past his farm in Vermont, thinking he would ride it to Boston, but fell asleep among sacks of potatoes and did not awaken until he was somewhere in the Hudson Valley. So he’d hopped off at Pennsylvania Station instead and walked to the enlistment office in Times Square, where he’d signed up with an invented address in Yonkers and a forged note from his parents asserting that he was of age.

Matthew felt a jolt of protectiveness when he learned this—Kevin was barely older than Theo, and Theo was still very much a boy.

But farm life had toughened Kevin from early childhood; he was skinny, but he was strong and he was fast and he’d been handling a gun since he was six, while Matthew had only ever shot clay pigeons with pellets a handful of times—and poorly at that—at the Nelsons’ summer cottage in Belle Harbor. Kevin had been the one to teach him how to aim, how to exhale as he pulled the trigger, how to estimate the wind and the grade of the ground to ensure he hit his mark. They had lived off venison and moose and sometimes bear during the winters, Kevin explained, and you always wanted to give a swift death because you could always taste the suffering of an animal in its meat. “God made it that way so we could never ignore the pain we caused,” he’d said. “I believe that.”

 _Oh, Kevin. You were more right about God than I ever realized_. He could not scrub from his memory the sight of him at the end, pale as death and panting shallowly with fever, bleeding through the rough bandages that covered the stumps of his thighs and the remaining six inches of his left arm, feeling the crushed ribs on his left side creaking with every breath. His eyes were glassy with pain, his mouth slack, too, so much that Matthew had not been entirely certain he was conscious. He’d let Kevin rest his head in his lap the whole night through, only letting himself doze when someone else was awake to watch his breathing. Though he had spent most of the day before crying out from his wounds, he had not made a sound since he’d been brought back to the trench. It had been Matthew who had carried him to the ambulance station in the morning, as gently as he could, but Kevin had winced with every step. “You’ll be all right, Kevin,” he’d lied as the nurses took charge of him. “You’re safe now.”

Now proof of his lie was waiting for him in his sitting room in a cotton dress and a string of jet beads.

There was nothing else for it but to face it, he supposed. He slicked his hair back and felt his collar to make sure it was straight before replacing his dark glasses and donning his jacket. Despite the open windows, the heat was oppressive in the apartment, and he’d already begun to sweat again. At least that that would conceal his unease.

He paused in the doorway of the sitting room and cleared his throat to catch Franklin’s attention.

“Ah, here he is,” Franklin said, and now everyone was standing again and Franklin was guiding him forward toward the woman.

“Miss Page,” Matthew said, extending his hand. When she took it, her skin was somehow cool and dry, despite the temperature in the apartment. “I hope Franklin has made you feel welcome while you waited.”

“Oh, certainly,” she said. “I am—” she paused and then touched his face, which surprised him. “I am so glad to finally meet you. Please call me Karen—that was what Kevin called me as a baby when he could not pronounce Katherine, and the name stuck. He told me a great deal about you. I feel we are old friends already.”

Matthew stepped back clumsily and struck one of the armchairs with his hip. To hear Kevin’s distinctive [almost-Irish Vermont accent](https://soundcloud.com/vprweb/web-fred-tape) in her voice was as disorienting as the knowledge that he’d made it home alive. “He survived, then? He was already feverish—”

“He survived the journey home,” she said. “Please, sit, and I will tell you everything.”

When Karen and her father arrived in Boston to meet Kevin, the Army physicians had told them he would be better off in an asylum for the crippled, where nurses could care for him around the clock. Paxton Page had taken one look at his son and shook his head. “Boy’s got one good arm, still,” he’d said. “He don’t need a nurse.”

They had spent money they did not have on a private compartment on the train home so no one would stare at him, though nothing could prevent that from happening on the platform at Boston’s South Station. Still, Kevin had kept his head high as his father had lifted him into his arms like he had when Kevin was a child and carried him down the narrow passage to their compartment as his wheelchair was taken to the baggage car. There was not really enough of his left arm left to make a prosthetic useful, but by the time they arrived home seven hours later, Paxton had sketched out a plan to add a second rim to the right wheel of his chair that controlled his left wheel so he could steer by himself with one hand.

Vermonters were practical people, and after a brief burst of curiosity, the town of Fagan Corners simply set about the business of making a new place for him. The fresh air and wholesome food at the farm restored much of his lost health, and his right arm and hand grew exceptionally strong and dextrous as he learned to do more and more things by himself. The friends he’d left behind had simply taken the rest in stride, carrying his wheelchair over unpaved paths and up and down stairs to parties and socials, and there was always a girl happy to sit and chat with him while the others danced. Old Mr. Teitelbaum had given him a job working the cash register at his general store, and they’d used his wages to pay the new farm hand Paxton had hired to help him and his daughter come harvest time.

Not that it was easy, of course, Karen said. He was plagued by nightmares and feared loud noises, and while the community had wrapped its arms around him now while he was still a young and charming boy, he worried about his future, of being dependent on her and whoever she married for the rest of his life, of never marrying or having children of his own, of growing old within this broken body. He hated the sight of himself in the mirror and he refused to look down at himself in the bath, and he despised the wheelchair no matter how much freedom it offered him.

“I can understand that,” Matthew said softly.

“Indeed,” Karen said. “But I think he could have made his peace with it in time. He was starting to, at the end—he’d begun to joke about it more, really joke about it, not just to soften an uncomfortable moment. He even consented to having a photograph made last December for Christmas, which I’m eternally grateful for now that he’s gone.”

“What happened?”

“Spanish flu this past February,” she said simply. “We all got it. My father died first, so that was a blessing, at least. He didn’t have to see Kevin go.”

“I’m so sorry.”

She sniffled a little, then there was a flutter of movement as, he supposed, she dabbed a handkerchief at her eye.

“I buried them next to my mother. I remembered that Kevin said you lived here, so I inquired with the War Office to see if you had returned. It took a very long time for them to reply, but they finally provided me with Mr. Nelson’s parents’ address, and they sent me here.”

“I am glad you found me,” Matthew said, surprised to discover that he meant it. “I have often wondered how he fared.”

“He wrote a letter to you,” Karen said. “While he was ill. I found it among his things afterward. I have it here for you, if you would like it. Perhaps Mr. Nelson could read it to you?”

Franklin took the letter from her hand, thumbed the envelope open, and skimmed the page. “Shall I read it now?”

“I should not want to violate your confidence, Mr. Murdock.”

“It is all right,” Matthew said, hoping she could not tell how tight his voice had grown in his throat. “I do not mind. And you must miss hearing his words.”

“I do, very much so,” she said softly, dabbing her eye again. “Thank you.”

_Hullo Old Man—_

_I don’t know if you will ever see this for I do not think the War Office will respond to my inquiry about your address in time. I am very poorly with flu, my sister is too & my father has already passed & I felt called to set my thoughts down while I am still able. I know the men thought you a fool to risk your life to save me but I wanted you to know that I was grateful for giving me second chance. I must rely on others still for some things & I have many dark thoughts it is true but it is not all bad. The town mistakenly believes me a hero which makes me feel a fraud but it is better than to be pitied & I suppose in a year or two they will forget that I was ever whole & I shall simply become Kevin again. I am apprenticing with the local shopkeeper for he is old & his children have all left for Boston & he thinks I could run the store as well as anyone with proper help. If I recover I aim to prove him right. _

_It has been more than a year since we last spoke but I think often of the friends I made in France for as much as war tears the world apart it also binds men together. I hope you made it through safely & are home now studying the law as you said. If God willing I recover from this illness you must come visit for it is very beautiful in the fall & the leaves are all the colors of fire & I think you should like it very much. Perhaps you should like my sister, too, for she is very kind & clever & there is no man here worth her hand. (Do not tell her I said so for there is a boy she is fond of tho I do not think much of him.)_

Franklin giggled a little nervously, and Matthew could feel the flush of heat on Karen’s face from where he sat.

_At any rate old man I just wanted you to know that I was all right in the end & that I thank you for if I die from flu at least I shall die at home looking out upon the Green Mountains instead of the butcher’s floor that was France. They are right now all covered in snow & the snow has a sharp clean scent & those who are able are tapping the maples for sap. I can smell the syrup boiling from my bed & it is very pleasant & even as the day grows dark I know I am home. _

_Sincerely your friend—_

_K._

Matthew swallowed and rubbed his face and stood up. He did not know where he meant to go, only that he needed to move somehow. Ignoring the surprise of Franklin and Karen, he felt his way out into the hall and leaned against the wall, trying to will the sob burning in his throat to return whence it came.

After a moment, he heard Franklin’s step on the threshold.

“Matthew,” he said softly. “You cannot see the look on her face, but she needs you.”

“He was only 16,” Matthew said. “He never should have been in France in the first place. I should have told our commanding officer before we sailed, but I didn’t because I thought I would have done the same thing in his shoes.”

“Yes, you would have,” Franklin said, gripping Matthew’s arms. “And you would have accepted the consequences the same as him. But he did not die from the war, Matthew. He died from the same stupid thing that’s killed so many others, and it might have killed him anyway.”

“I know, but at least his last years would have been better ones. He would have been on his farm with his family—”

“Matthew, stop,” Franklin said. “You were not responsible for his decisions. He was doing what he wanted to do. Now go back into that room and comfort his sister, for God’s sake.”

And somehow he did. Kevin was right, for Karen revealed herself to be both kind and clever. She had not, as Matthew feared, come all the way to New York simply to deliver a letter. After burying her father and Kevin, she had sold the farm, traveling first to Boston, where her mother’s family still lived in a fine house in Back Bay. But they were not well pleased to see her, for she was the reason their shining Penelope had run off to the farm with the greengrocer’s boy in the first place, and she did not even stay long enough to unpack.

The sale of the farm had not made her wealthy, but it left her with options, and the next morning she chose to exercise them. She boarded the first train to New York and took a room at the YWCA while she figured out what to do next.

“Next” turned out to be a secretarial course, followed by a bookkeeping course, reasoning that if she was careful with her spending, she could afford to attend Hunter College the following year, for she had a passion for literature. Last month she had taken a surprisingly well-paying job with a construction firm called Union Allied, though she was beginning to suspect that the reason for her extraordinary salary was that her employer was rather more closely linked to the Irish Mob than it ought to be.

“I suppose it should make me feel quite daring to be involved in a criminal operation,” she said wryly. “But women’s reputations are such fragile things that I think I will begin looking for other work instead.”

Franklin reached over and batted Matthew’s arm. “Are you thinking what I am thinking, brother?”

Matthew smiled. He had thought to hire one of the brighter girls from the orphanage to assist him at school, but he and Sister Maggie both had serious reservations about how well a teenager would fare among the young men there. But Kevin’s sister would be 21 or 22 by now—old enough to look after herself, he thought.

“Miss Page,” he said slowly. “Karen, I mean. Instead of Hunter, how would you like to become the first woman to attend Columbia University?”

* * *

END OF PART 1

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your comments and kudos so far! The end of Part 1 does not mean the end--I'm still having to make some decisions about Part 2, but in the meantime, the suggestion box is always open.
> 
> What do you think about bringing some of the Defenders? Or even the Avengers? Dear lord, is there room in this AU for Deadpool? When should Elektra show up? Inquiring writers want to know! Your words give me wings. xoxo
> 
> (And for all you Fratt fans--I promise this is not the last we'll see of Frank.)


	8. October 1921: Birth of the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _We all have a little of Satan’s power in us, Matthew,_ Lantom had said. _It’s what makes us human. What makes us righteous is whether we use it the way he wants us to, or the way God wants us to._  
>  _And how does God want me to use my fists, Father?_  
>  _Maybe the better question is how He wants you to use your hands. You can choose to strike out in anger, or you can use them to serve justice by reading the law. Which do you think will allow you to do the most good?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hi there! No, I didn't forget about this. Still writing and posting in real time, without much of a plan--just seeing where the wind (and the story) takes me! I'm still struggling to recapture the voice of the original, so apologies if it's not quite the same. 
> 
> By 1921, Prohibition is in full swing. The *sale* of alcohol is outlawed--but home-brewed beer, wine, and cider are permitted for personal use. 
> 
> For DD fans not familiar with New York geography, Columbia University is at 116th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam, and it's about ten blocks south of Harlem.
> 
> The usual content warnings apply for period-relevant ableism, homophobia, and a little racism.

An Interlude

* * *

 

It was closer to November than September, but Fogwell’s was starting to feel like a blast furnace by four in the afternoon. An Indian summer had set in unexpectedly three weeks earlier, adding extra misery to Matthew’s Saturday training sessions with Stick.

After two and a half years, their workouts were no longer a novelty to the men who trained there. All the men knew to keep their distance from the Blind Boxer of Bensonhurst anyway, and Matthew, as his young protégé, had quickly found shelter in the penumbra of his reputation. Or so Stick—he still would not allow Matthew to call him Walter—liked to tell him. “You’re soft, Matty,” he’d said, as he said every week. “They don’t respect you. Hell, Matty, they don’t even respect _me_ —they’re just afraid of me. But one of these days, you’re gonna walk in that door and I’m not gonna be here, and they’re gonna find out just how soft you really are.”

“That why you’re breathing harder than me, old man?” Matthew had retorted as he unscrewed the cap of his canteen, earning him a surprise left hook that he managed to block—barely—followed by a right uppercut that he failed to anticipate entirely.

“That’s right, Matty,” Stick said, batting the canteen away and slapping Matthew on the jaw for good measure. “Underestimate me. See how far that gets you.”

But instead of flying at Stick in rage as he might have before, Matthew had simply laughed and pushed himself up off the ropes, and then delivered three perfectly placed jabs to Stick’s solar plexus, stealing his air and driving him back toward his corner and Matthew’s victory.

Because Stick was wrong. Matthew could hear the anxious flutter in the heartbeats of the men whenever he entered the gym, even as they played at cruelty for their fellows by belligerently waiting until the last possible moment to step out of his way. Hear the hiss of sucked-in breath whenever he removed his glasses, the murmurs when he wrapped his hands, the nervous laughter when he struck the heavy bag so hard it swayed almost out of arm’s reach.

Yes, they were afraid of Matthew, too.

He would have preferred their respect. Matthew’s youth and fitness were starting to match—and more frequently, on hot days like this, overmatch—Stick’s experience, and he wanted new opponents. He wanted to try fighting sighted men. He’d learned that his perceptions served him best when he focused them tightly on one spot rather than trying to take everything in at once—and when his focus was trained on a single heartbeat, God help that man. He knew he was good enough to take any one of them, and he was certain they did, too.

But he knew he’d never find a sparring partner here. As Stick had learned long ago, unless there was a wager on the table, there was no fun in winning against a blind man, even one as good as he, and there was certainly none to be had in losing to one. He also knew that the moment he put money on the table, he’d be no better than Stick, selling his body for a lark. No, he was not interested in that.

Well, at least he had this, he thought as he unwrapped his hands, and _this_ was not nothing. Here, he could finally land the punches he yearned to plant upon the chins of the pompous princes at Columbia who spoke condescendingly of “your sort” and “that Papist” and “Nelson’s pet cripple.” The snide swells who blithely referred to Miss Page as “Murdock’s nursemaid” or worse, “Murdock’s doxy.” The smug little weasels who liked to warn Franklin that by championing Matthew he was ruining his career before it even began. God, not a day went by that he didn’t want to beat them all.

But once his anger was spent and his rage burned away, it felt like flying, dancing and dodging in the ring as he did. He treasured the rare joy of speed, of freedom, of feeling the full power of his body flow through his arms and legs. In the ring he was loose of his chains—free of his stick and his glasses and Franklin’s guiding arm. In the ring he finally understood why Castle kept fighting despite his weak leg, why his father’s eyes always glowed so bright after a match. It was a drug, this rush, this pain he invited each week, the pain he dealt out in return.

Castle would have fought him, he thought as he took up his stick and headed for his locker. If he’d been brave enough to stay.

He had no idea where Castle was now—he had not been joking about making a clean break. He’d never written, and if his travels had ever brought him back to New York, he’d never called upon Matthew to say hello. He liked to think he’d fetched up down South or out West after all, where the winters would go easier on his leg and he could eat all the fruit he wanted and he could find a pretty girl to share his bed and give him more children, so he could hear the word ‘Papa’ in his ears once again.

Yes, for all that Matthew missed him, he still very much hoped Castle was happy, wherever he was.

Not that it didn’t ache, still. Now that he’d had a taste of pleasure, he was finding chastity harder to bear. He knew it was to be expected, that the Barnard girls who ran in their circle might like him well enough, but until he could prove he could earn a good living, liking was all he was liable to get. As for men—well, he was a blind Catholic orphan trying to make a name for himself as a lawyer in a city where nobody like him ever had. He was not going to risk adding the word _fairy_ to the list of strikes against him.

Candace, for her part, had gone off and promised herself to a Yale boy after her first year at Vassar. Matthew had met William and he seemed a steady, charming enough fellow, but even though his own feelings for Franklin’s sister had never returned, he nevertheless thought he himself was still the better choice for her. Vanity, indeed, he thought as he dressed, patting down his clothes to make sure they were straight.

Finally: Glasses, hat, walking stick. Franklin had once merrily observed, after a little too much of Edward Nelson’s homemade cider, that the extra-long cane with the round brass head gave him the air of a drum major. It had been meant as a joke but it had landed badly: Franklin knew nothing of Matthew’s enhanced perceptions, and he had no idea how much it rankled Matthew to still rely on it.

The truth was that although he could locate a door or a chair as easily as a sighted man, he still had not mastered the knack of perceiving things that were low to the ground, especially when they were close by. It was rather like perpetually wading through an ankle-deep fog. It didn’t matter in the ring, or at home where both he and Franklin were assiduous about keeping things tidy—but out on the street? He was still as likely to trip over a curb or a discarded box as Franklin would blindfolded. So a drum major he was resigned to be.

A grumble of thunder rolled in from the west as he stepped outside, and with it, a strong cold gust of wind. He decided to skip his weekly visit to the library in favor of going straight home, where his coat and his umbrella were. He still had the better part of Joyce’s _Dubliners_ to finish, anyway. A new book could wait.

Then a sudden sharp sound caught his ear: A woman’s voice, surprised. And angry.

“Take your hands off me!”

He pinpointed the voice easily to a flurry of movement about a dozen paces ahead of him. He hurried toward it, and as he did, the flurry resolved into three forms, one cloaked in silk and jasmine perfume, two in sweaty wool and filthy linen.

“What’s going on here?” Matthew asked loudly as he approached, his old stern schoolmaster’s voice coming back to him easily.

“Nonna yer business,” snarled one, while the other resumed his molestations of the woman.

“Get off me, you two!” she shouted. “They’re trying to take my purse!”

Without thinking, Matthew reached forward toward the disturbance and grabbed the first arm that his hand landed on, eliciting a boy’s yelp. He dragged the boy off as hard as he could and sent him sprawling on the pavement, growling “stay down” as he did.

The other—a young man from the size of him—was already rounding on Matthew as he turned back toward the woman, but Matthew managed to grab ahold of his jacket and pull him in close for a hard punch to the nose that left him staggering off into the road. “There are at least twenty boxers just through there, you fools,” he said roughly, waving back toward Fogwell’s door, propped open to capture some of the breeze. “Perhaps I should invite my friends to the dance, too.”

The threat was enough to cause the boys to scramble and take off toward the river.

“I’m pleased to see chivalry isn’t dead,” she said with a little laugh as she straightened her dress and hat. She had an unusual accent—Southern belle by way of a European finishing school, he suspected.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” Matthew asked, kneeling down to search for his cane. It must have rolled away from where he’d dropped it, and he could not seem to pick it out from among the heaved-up paving stones of the decrepit sidewalk.

“Nothing a needle and thread won’t fix,” she said, twisting her arm to examine her sleeve. “Why, you’re blind.” It was more a statement than a question.

“I am.”

She toed the cane so it touched his hand, and he grasped it gratefully.

“And how does a blind man box?” she asked as he stood, not even bothering to hide her stare.

“Better than you might think,” he said, brushing his hands off on his trousers.

“If you can handle yourself in the ring the way you handled yourself with those boys, I should very much like to see that.”

“It’s not a circus act,” Matthew said shortly.

“I never suggested it was,” she said tartly. “My father’s a rather enthusiastic patron of the pugilistic arts back home, and I’ve come to quite enjoy it myself. Does that shock you?”

“I was in the war, ma’am. Nothing shocks me anymore.”

“No,” she said thoughtfully. “I expect not.”

“This neighborhood is called Hell’s Kitchen for a reason,” he said, mostly to forestall any further questions. “And you sound like you’re a long way from home. Are you lost?”

She laughed, the sound musical in his ear. “Apparently. I arrived at Grand Central Station this afternoon and the weather was fine enough that I thought I would take the air by walking to my hotel. But I seem to have the address wrong.”

“Which hotel?”

“The Presidential.”

Matthew knew immediately what her error had been. “You’ll be wanting East 43rd Street, not West 43rd,” he said. “It’s a common mistake for newcomers.”

“Oh dear,” she said. “Am I quite far?”

“Six avenues east,” Matthew said. Then, despite the threatening storm: “Perhaps you’d enjoy the novelty of permitting a blind man to show you the way?”

“Well, they do say New York is full of wonders—how could I possibly refuse?”

Matthew grinned and offered her his elbow. “Matthew Murdock, at your service.”

“Lexie Nash,” she said, the smile in her voice as hot as the sun. “I’m charmed to make your acquaintance, Mr. Murdock, though I should have preferred more congenial circumstances.”

“We do things differently in New York,” Matthew deadpanned, and was gratified by another intoxicating laugh. This close to her, he could detect a note of vanilla beneath the jasmine, and a bit of citrus, too. Orange oil, perhaps, since the fruit itself was not yet in season. Between her scent and her accent, she must be from Florida, he guessed.

Still, he asked.

“Florida,” she said. “My father travels for business several times a year, and I finally managed to convince him to let me join him.”

“Then we must deliver you to your hotel before he notices you missing,” Matthew said gallantly.

“Not as quickly as that, I should hope,” she murmured silkily. “So tell me, what does Mr. Murdock do when he’s not out playing vigilante?”

Matthew laughed. “I’m studying the law.”

“I suppose you’ve had your fill of blind justice jokes.”

“Indeed,” Matthew said.

“And you came by your affliction in the war? Was it mustard gas?”

“Yes,” he said, stiffening slightly at the boldness of her question.

“Dreadful business.”

“Miss Nash, I am not interested in pity,” Matthew said sharply, the old anger rising inside him.

“Not pity,” she said. “It’s an ugly, evil weapon of an ugly, evil enemy.”

“Can I tell you an even uglier secret, ma’am?” Matthew asked.

“All right.”

“The truth is that if we’d had a safe way to bring it across the sea, we’d have used it too.”

Miss Nash gave a thoughtful hum. “I’m glad to hear you say that,” she said. “Wars are meant to be won. There’s nothing heroic about losing virtuously.”

“You seem to know a great deal about war,” Matthew said, with rather more delight that he wanted to admit. He had yet to meet a woman who was interested in such matters—even the equanimous Miss Page, who weathered his dark sulks and frustrations with more grace and humor than he deserved, gently redirected him whenever he began to speak of it. To keep him from wallowing, she said, but he knew full well that the subject distressed her as much as his mood.

“My family is Greek,” she said. “We drink war in our mother’s milk.”

That explained the European inflection in her accent, then. “I take it Nash was not the name you were born with.”

“My real name is Elektra Natchios,” she said. “But English names open more doors in this country.”

“Indeed. My father’s last name was Muircheartaigh before he came here,” Matthew said.

“Was your home badly affected by the Great War?”

She laughed. “No, we left in 1912. And besides, we came from Ithra, far from the fighting.”

“Hydra?” Matthew said, pronouncing the name in English. “I confess I’m only familiar with the monster.”

“You speak Greek,” Miss Nash said, again more of a statement than a question. “Impressive.”

“Schoolboy Greek,” Matthew allowed. “Enough to bash through a few lines of Homer.”

“Hydra is an island near Corinth,” she said. “It’s the center of Greece’s sponge industry. When the sponge fields were discovered in the Gulf of Mexico, we came here with ten divers and enough capital to buy two secondhand boats. My father now owns the largest sponge distribution concern in the country. It’s the classic American dream, I suppose.”

“Indeed,” Matthew said. “You know, I don’t believe I’d ever given the slightest thought to where sponges came from.”

“We prefer it that way,” Miss Nash said conspiratorially. “Less competition.”

Matthew smiled. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“Good,” she said, a note of satisfaction in her voice. “I appreciate a man who is discreet.”

“Attorneys keep more secrets than priests,” Matthew said. “Discretion is our watchword.”

“Why, Mr. Murdock, one might think you’re trying to encourage me to reveal something truly compromising,” she said silkily. She squeezed his arm and the pressure of her touch sent an electric shot deep into his belly. A fresh warmth began to radiate from her skin, and after a heartbeat or two he realized it was arousal. Another heartbeat led him to realize that the sensation was mutual.

“Why, Miss Nash, one might think you have something compromising to reveal,” Matthew murmured, his voice rather lower than he intended it to be.

She laughed at that, and Matthew swallowed to keep his breath steady. God, he had missed flirting. And what a woman to flirt with! He had no idea what to make of her—she was unlike any he’d ever met before.

“Would it be too forward of me to inquire how long you plan to stay in our fair city?” he asked.

“Just the night, I’m afraid,” she said, with genuine regret. “We leave for Montreal in the morning. Father is expanding into the Canadian market. It will be nice to get a proper glass of wine, at least.”

“Pity,” Matthew said as his heart sank. “I should have liked to show you more of the town.”

“I daresay I should have enjoyed being shown,” she said. Matthew could tell from the line of carriages and the busy bustle of doormen and luggage that they were approaching the grand front entrance of the Presidential Hotel. “Alas, it appears our time together must end, however.”

“Enjoy your visit to Canada, Miss Nash,” he said, tipping his hat. “Watch out for pickpockets.”

She gifted him with one final laugh, then squeezed his hand gently in farewell. “I do hope our paths will cross again, Mr. Murdock,” she said softly.

“Indeed,” Matthew said, raising her hand to kiss. “Until then.”

“Until then,” she echoed, a smile in her voice. She slipped away and quickly disappeared behind the grand doors to the lobby.

It took more restraint than he expected to stop himself from following her.

* * *

Much later that night, Matthew sat in the window seat of his living room, nursing a few splashes of homemade hard cider from Edward Nelson’s private stash and trying to finish the second-to-last chapter of his book. The storm had finally blown itself out an hour ago, but sleep was lost to him now—between the mortar explosions of thunder and the intoxicating memory of Miss Nash’s presence, he did not dare court the dreams either would inspire tonight.

Because just as delicious as his memory of walking with Miss Nash was, so was the feeling of saving her. His hand throbbed still, but the thrill of feeling the bones of the thief’s nose crunch beneath his knuckles obliterated any sense of regret.

He knew the feeling of course—the sawing of the knife, the popping of cartilage beneath the blade, the tearing of skin when the edge grew too dull. The old familiar evil remained in him still.

 _Ever since I came home I’ve felt like I have the Devil in me, Father_ , he’d once confessed to Lantom, after losing his temper at a party and punching a fellow who drunkenly suggested Franklin leave his charge in the care of some other nanny so he could enjoy a proper night on the town. Matthew had been so angry he’d forgotten to pull his punch, to miss on purpose. He’d caught the cad hard enough in the jaw to dislodge a tooth and was reaching for his jacket to draw him back in for another hit when Franklin rounded on him and shoved him off.

 _We all have a little of Satan’s power in us, Matthew_ , Lantom had said. _It’s what makes us human. What makes us righteous is whether we use it the way_ he _wants us to, or the way God wants us to._

_And how does God want me to use my fists, Father?_

_Maybe the better question is how He wants you to use your hands. You can choose to strike out in anger, or you can use them to serve justice by reading the law. Which do you think will allow you to do the most good?_

He finished his cider and opened the window a little to listen to the neighborhood. It must be well after midnight now, and the rain had driven anyone who might still be out at this hour indoors long ago. But the rats were out, and the cats who fed on them, and the stray dogs who hunted them both. There were horses snuffling in their stables and the occasional carriage rattling past. A pair of beat cops strolled past below, and Matthew knew instinctively from the timbre of their voices that whatever they were laughing about was not an innocent joke.

“Yer a genius, McManus,” one crowed. “Takin’ our cut in trade from the Rooster.”

“Toldja I got a mind fer business,” McManus said, smugly. “All we hafta do is shake down a little extra from the Jew on LaSalle to make the difference, and Cooper and McManus get all the pussy we want fer free.”

The Red Rooster was a music hall on the corner of 123rd and Amsterdam—a popular haunt on the blurry edge of Harlem that served both Columbia boys and colored men alike. It was a front for a whorehouse, and Lady Mariah’s egalitarian attitude toward her customer base ensured that it would never be raided because there was no wealthy family in the city would allow the police to reveal that their golden boy dipped his wick beneath the same roof as a black one. A clever insurance policy it was, and Matthew had always admired Lady Mariah for it. She was a woman who knew men.

But that meant the protection money she was paying wasn’t going to the cops at all. They were just errand boys for some gangster—perhaps whoever Lady Mariah got her rum from.

The Jew on LaSalle was Arnold Roth, and he ran a pawn shop that specialized in guns and jewelry and anything else a desperate man looking to lay something on a pony at the betting parlor around the corner might be willing to part with.

Arnie Roth knew men, too—knew men like those crooked cops and especially the big men who bent them. He’d pay.

Matthew Murdock was from Hell’s Kitchen, and he knew things too: He knew the ache in his knuckles was righteously earned. He knew his power—whether granted by Satan or God—were wasted behind a desk. And he knew that justice and the law were not always the same.

* * *

He hadn’t really known what he meant to do when he decided to change into his darkest clothes and go out into the night, but he supposed he must have had some idea when he decided to leave his glasses at home and take his old stick—the cheap pine one the War Department had given him when he first returned from France.

He’d strolled up to LaSalle with his hat pulled low, hardly bothering to tap now that no one else was about, just holding it before him so the tip could warn him of any low-lying obstacles in his way.

He heard Roth arguing with the cops before he rounded the corner and stopped to listen.

“Why he want more money now?” Roth pleaded. “I run tight ship. Every dollar accounted for. I pay you more tonight, I raise price on customers. Is bad for business. Bad business become no business. No business become no pay. Tell him I need more time.”

McManus laughed mirthlessly. “You think the Kingpin got to where he is today by negotiating?”

“But it make no sense,” Roth argued. “He is not stupid man. He understand how business work.”

“He understand how _his_ business work,” the Cooper said, mocking Roth’s accent. “He not very understanding about _yours_.”

Matthew paused to tie his necktie around his head to shield his eyes, then pulled his hat even lower down over his brow to—he hope—disguise it. He tipped his face down for good measure and then leaned his cane against a wall between two trash cans, praying there was nothing between him and the store that he might trip on.

After quickly scanning the street to ensure there were no other people out except the police officers and Mr. Roth, he focused the beam of his perception as tightly as he could on the pavement ahead, as near to his feet as he could. His heart thrummed with excitement—this was the first time he’d walked outside without his stick since before he’d been blinded, and all he wanted to do was run. It took everything he had to keep from grinning like an idiot, from breaking into song.

Instead, he poured that energy into managing his perceptions, flicking the beam here and there, every now and then up to the arguing trio before returning it to the pavement ahead. It was really not all that different from lurking around St. Agnes’, he thought. Just bigger.

“Excuse me?” he asked as he approached the commotion. “Is something wrong?”

All three of them gaped at him, this inconvenient insomniac who had interrupted their shakedown.

“We’re just advising Mr. Roth here that there’s a bad element in the neighborhood, and reminding him that he needs to take better precautions if he wants to keep his business safe,” McManus said condescendingly. “These old buildings catch fire so easily.”

“Best run on home,” Cooper added. “Wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, too.”

“Well, I certainly am grateful that New York’s finest is looking out for the little guys like us,” Matthew said, reaching forward. “I’d sure like to shake your hand.”

McManus and Cooper stifled surprised giggles. “All right,” McManus said, taking Matthew’s hand. “Always glad to meet a citizen who understands the value of our work.”

As quick as he could, Matthew yanked him in close and drove a hard left into McManus’ solar plexus, stealing his air and sending him staggering back. It disabled him long enough for Matthew to catch the startled Cooper on his ear, followed by a quick uppercut to the chin for good measure. That put him down hard enough that Matthew was able to return his attention to McManus, who he dispatched rapidly with a few quick jabs to the head and a knee to the groin for good measure.

“Jesus Christ,” McManus groaned. “Goddamn idiot thinks he’s Zorro.”

By then, Cooper was blearily trying to stand, and Matthew kicked him hard in the chest, sending him back down. “The next time you try to get up, it’s because you’re leaving, do you understand?”

Cooper nodded weakly, then turned his head to spit blood and a few teeth onto the curb.

“You are not going to pin your shortfall on Arnie Roth—or any of your other victims—tonight. You’re going to go back to this Kingpin and explain why you’re short, and then you’re going to take whatever punishment he deals you. Then you’re going to go back to work, talk to your precinct commander, and tell him what’s going on under his nose. Do you understand?”

McManus had come to just enough to laugh wearily. “You think the precinct commander don’t already know, moron?” He coughed heavily. “Even assuming we live long enough to tell him.”

“Then you’d best pay him out of your own pockets to save your skins,” Matthew said pitilessly. “And if you come after Mr. Roth again, I will know and I will hunt you down.” Then, to leave no doubt: “Officer Cooper, Officer McManus.”

Cooper began to gingerly rise again, holding out his hands to prove to Matthew that he wasn’t going to try to come at him. He slowly helped McManus up next, slinging the man’s arm over his shoulder to support him.

“You make enemy you’ll wish you hadn’t,” Mr. Roth said as the two injured cops stumbled away. “But I thank you.”

“Better this Kingpin be my enemy than yours,” Matthew said. “Are you all right?”

“For now,” Roth said, turning back and casting a glance at his shop. “But I think is time to move to Brooklyn all the same.”

Matthew sighed and nodded. At least Roth was alive and had a second chance to thrive. It would have to be enough. “Take care, Mr. Roth,” he said, holding out his hand. “And good luck.”

“Thank you, Mister—” Roth said, taking his hand. “I don’t suppose you tell me name.”

“Best for both of us if I don’t.”

Mr. Roth nodded, then turned to go back into his store. “You take care too, whoever you are.”

Matthew waited until Roth had locked his front door behind himself before turning back to retrieve his cane. It was impossible to focus now that the fight was done—he staggered blindly, tripping twice and falling once, but he didn’t care. It was his third fight in 24 hours, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this alive. Not since France, he realized. Not since the war. Not for the first time, he wondered if he would ever truly be suited to peace again.

_Maybe the better question is how He wants you to use your hands. You can choose to strike out in anger, or you can use them to serve justice by reading the law. Which do you think will allow you to do the most good?_

Matthew smiled, because he finally knew the answer.

Both.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: Hydra really is one of the islands at the center of Greece's sponge industry. (The Marvel link was too good to ignore.) In the early 20th century, Greeks from those islands migrated to Florida and brought their sponge-diving technique with them. Tarpon Springs, Florida, has the largest Greek-American community in the U.S. to this day. Raise your hand if you want there to be a sponge bath in Matthew's future?
> 
> "[The Mark of Zorro](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0011439/)" starring Douglas Fairbanks was released in 1920. [As you can see here](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0011439/mediaviewer/rm330499584), he's a great inspiration for Daredevil.
> 
> Hope to have more for y'all in coming weeks, but y'know, work, life, yadda yadda. Stay tuned! Please feed me comments so I know people are still reading this nonsense. :D

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still on [Tumblr](https://beaarthurpendragon.tumblr.com/), too, for however long that lasts.


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